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PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE: 



COMPILED FOE THE USE OF SCHOOLS IN READING 
AND SPEAKING. 



MBS. C. M.'' KIRKLAND. 




NEW YORK: 
CHARLES SORIBNER & CO., 654 BROADWAY. 

INGHAM & BRAGGf^, CLEVELAND, OHIO. 

1866. 



C<l 



ri 



<^ 



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'<^^- 
t^-^ 



. Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1865, by 
CHARLES SCRIBNER & CO., 
In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the 
Southern District of New York. 



JOHN F. TROW & CO., 

PRINTERS, STEREOTYPERS, Sf ELECT ROTYFERS, 

50 GREENE STREET, N.Y. 



INTRODUCTION. 



In Dr. Young's Wight-Thought Days, the public was sup- 
posed to be so. little informed on the claims of *' great heirs 
of fame " of other times, that the learned and courtly Doctor 
thought it necessary, on mentioning the name of Demos- 
thenes, to subjoin an explanatory note setting forth that the 
said Demosthenes was " a great Grecian orator." 

We would not be suspected of entertaining a similar idea 
respecting the interest felt, iiere and now, in the noble speak- 
ers who contributed to enlighten and inspire the ' popular 
mind, from the moment of the first " glorious discontent " 
to the crowning hour when the Union was celebrated in 
undying words by a consummate orator of our own day. 
The happy and generous prescience of the earlier advocates 
of Freedom, and the splendid enthusiasm of him v/ho cele- 
brated its triumph are universally recognized and honored 
among us, and the Anglo-Saxon tongue aifords no new epi- 
thet with which to enhance our praise of the eloquent fathers 
and sons of Anierican Liberty. 

Yet in the haste of our new American life it is not quite 
certain that the thoughts and feelings which have become 
part of the very texture of life with us, will, without care on 
our part, be equally precious to our children. Intrinsic value 
is not always enough to secure regard. Family jev/els must 
be n6w set for the gay young bride, and grandpapa's buckles 
made into " three seal rings " for the dashing heir. The hum- 
ble citizen who undertakes these mechanical works must catch 



t. 



IV INTEODUCTION. 

the fashion of the day and make the gems portable and at- 
tractive, or juvenile impatience and fastidiousness will con- 
demn to the casket what ought to be worn on the breast and 
finger. The good Book says of guiding thoughts — " Thou 
shalt teach them diligently to thy children^ and shalt talk of 
them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walk- 
est by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou 
risest up. And thou shalt bind them for a sign upon thy 
hand, and they shall be as frontlets between thine eyes." 

So let it be with the grand inspiring sentiments of our own 
times. Let them be an ever-present shield against degeneracy. 

This little book pretends to no completeness as a reposi- 
tory of American oratory. Its aim is simply j)atriotic. I 
wish to recall the noble spirit of our fathers as an example 
and inspiration to the young peoj)le who owe them so much. 
The prosperity and happiness they won for us seem but too 
likely to make us forget their services. The grand results 
of their protest against oppression are so satisfying, that we 
sometimes forget to recur to the principles on which they 
acted, and in defence of which they perilled all. Reverence 
for them and their doings needs to be kept alive in the minds 
of our children by every possible means. Particularly in 
the course of their education should we be careful to store 
their memories with the thoughts and expressions once so 
potent as watchwords of freedom, lest the excitements of a 
life hurried and enterprising as that which our unexampled 
condition opens for them, should make them sordid and un- 
reflecting, intent on gain and pleasure, rather than on noble- 
ness and devotion to duty. 

As specimens of artistic eloquence, these extracts do not 
profess to claim the highest place. More sounding periods, 
more labored sentences, more showy and fascinating decla- 
mation might easily be found. But this early American elo- 
quence came warm from the heart ; its argumentative part 
was inspired by reason, experience, high principle and manly 
courage. Its charm is its truth and sincerity ; its power lies 
in its confident appeal to conscience, honor and common 



INTRODUCTION. V 

sense ; the materials of its pathos were real sufferings and 
imioending ruin. Its relations with our present daily life are 
close and important ; its relations to our future well-being 
perhaps even more so. It has the double value of simplicity 
and a sublime earnestness — qualities which we may well de- 
sire to see perpetuated in our American public speaking. It 
offers a dignified manly protest against the flashy tone too 
popular in our day, by the contrast it exhibits between the 
pithy things men say when great interests and high princi- 
ples are at stake, and the floods of talk they pour forth when 
inspired only by the desire to display their powers or gain 
some petty object. - 

In making my selections, I found I could not do justice 
to the spirit of the time, or give a faithful picture of the 
state of things, Avithout adding a few specimens of the Par- 
liamentary speeches of that excited period. There were no- 
ble souls on both sides of the water, and men who spoke for 
Liberty and in our favor at the foot of the throne whose oc- 
cupant was determined on our humiliation. They deserve 
our gratitude and our rememb^ance ; for their passionate ap- 
peals for justice to us at once advanced our cause there and 
inspired the hearts of our patriots at home. They are to be 
honored as disinterested friends who adopted our cause and 
became our advocates, from a sense of justice and right, and 
with no motive of personal interest or mere partiality. 

The plain Saxon English of most of the speeches is also, 
in my idew, no slight recommendation to them as exercises 
in speaking and reading. Fashion infringes too much upon 
this ; and although the best writers of our language are noAv 
trying by precept and example to return to the simplicity 
and purity of elder times, the popular tendency is in an op- 
posite direction. It has become really hard, in our country, 
to write .and speak plain, pure English, such foothold has a 
mixed and ambitious diction obtained. I would gladly hab- 
ituate the ears of our young people to the language of Dry- 
den, Pope, Addison, Goldsmith, as used by Fisher Ames, 
Patrick Henry, Franklin, Hamilton, and Washington. 



VI INTRODUCTION. 

In order to give some slight historic value to the extracts, 
I have thought it well .to arrange them in the order of time, 
and to add, occasionally, a few words explanatory of the cir- 
cumstances and feeling of the hour. History is made more 
interesting, and learned more easily in proportion as we can 
make it personal instead of abstract. The men who act are 
more engaging than the deeds they accomplish; stirring 
speeches make more impression upon fresh young minds 
than the grand results which those speeches helped to bring 
forth. As a companion to the study of history, this slight 
aid may prove useful. 

With a similar idea, I have interspersed the extracts with 
some of the more popular songs of our early and struggling 
days, and with other verses breathing a kindred spirit. The 
old songs have no great poetic value ; some of them are even 
uncouth in their versification, and all have an old-fashioned 
jingle which does not accord very well with the music of 
Tennyson, or the stately elegance of Bryant. Yet there is a 
soul in them, and they have a right to live. Our children 
should not forget or despise them, but keep them sacredly, 
as we do the quaint old china of our grandmothers, or the 
centipedal tables which bear the aroma, if they never graced 
the narrov/ cabin, of the May Flower. I have never yet 
happened to find a school-boy or girl who knows anything 
about "Adams and Liberty," or "Liberty Tree," or who 
could repeat Hail Columbia from beginning to end. 

Let us not so worship the dress of things, that we under- 
value the Spirit, which is life. C. M. K. 

New York, July, 1860. 



Note. — This work not having been brought by Mrs. Kifkland beyond the 
beginning of the Eebellion, it has been thought best to give additional value 
to the collection by introducing some specimens of the oratory and poetry 
which have been called forth by the events of the past four years. It is 
proper also to mention that the notes, which formed a part of the compiler's 
original plan, have been added by another hand. 
New York, ^ovemSer, 1865. 



CONTENTS 



Ex. Page 

I. Ministry vs. the People .John Diddnson. 1 

II. Protest against Injustice Col. Isaac Barre. 2 

III. Eloquence of James Otis Mrs. Child. 1 

IV. Tlie Liberty Tree 5 

V. Colonial Resistance Defended Lord Chatham. C 

VI. A Plea for Representation Lord Camden. 9 

VII. The Glory of Liberty Jonathan IJayhew. 10 

VIII. The Way- to obtain Supplies from America Thomas Poionall. 12 

IX. Exhortation to Self-Defence Josiah Quincy. 13 

X. A Song to the tune of " Hearts of Oak," John Diddnson. 14 

XI. Timely Warnings ' Thomas Pownall. 16 

XII. Eebuke of the British Ministers Col. Barre. 18 

XIII. First Aaniversary of the " Boston Massacre," James Lovell. 20 

XIV. The Contrast Earl of Chatham. 22 

XV. Anniversary Oration Dr. Joseph Warren. 23 

XVI. Pules for Peducing a Great Empire to a Small One, j^ ^ ^ iL-it-i-M -iL ■ 

Gentleman's Magazine. 25 

XVII. Protest against British Aggression Sons of Liberty. 27 

XVIII. King George's Tea-Party 28 

XIX. An Old Man's Advice Eai-l of Chatham. 39 

XX. Abandonment of Taxation Bishop of St. Asaph's, 31 

XXI. True and Ealse Dignity , Edmund Burlce. S3 

XXII. Great Britain's Bight to Tax America Edmund Burke. 35 

XXIII. Address to the People of Great Britain, Sept. 1774 36 

XXIV. Gen. Gage and the Ministry Edmund Burke. 38 

XXV. Inexpediency of Maintaining Troops in Boston. .Earl of Chatham. 39 

XXVI, Tribute to the Continental Congress Earl of Chatham. 41 

XXVII. Attitude of America towards Great Britain James Wilson. 42 

XXVIII. The Call to Ai-ms 44 

XXIX. Difference between Eebellion and Revolution John Wilkes. 45 

XXX. Opinions of an English Traveller in America Temple Luttrell. 47 

XXXI. Anniversary Oration Dr. Joseph Warren . 49 

XXXII. Useless Toil Lord Camden. 50 

XXXIII. The Revenue Question ...Edmund Burke. 52 

XXXIV. Spirit of Enterprise in New England Edmund Burke. 54 



VUl 



Ex. 

XXXV. 

XXXVI. 

XXXVII. 

XXXVIII. 

XXXIX. 

XL. 

XLI. 

XLII. 

XLIII. 

XLIV. 

XLV. 

XLVI. 

XLVII. 

XLVIII. 

XLIX. 

L. 

LI. 

LII. 

LIII. 
LIV. 

LV. 

LVI. 

LVII. 

LVIII. 

LIX. 

LX. 

LXI. 

LXII. 

LXIII. 

LXIV. 

LXV. 

LXVI. 

LXVII. 

LXVIII. 

LXIX. 



i CONTENTS. 

Page 

Lexington Oliver Wendell Holmes. 56 

Address of the Congress of Massachusetts Bay to the Inhabitants 

of Great Britain 58 

"War Inevitable Patrick Henry. 60 

Conflict of Duty and Inclination Earl of Effingham. 62 

Warren's Address before the Battle of Bunker Hill... .j; Pierpont. 
Eulogium on Gen. Joseph Warren, who fell at the Battle of Bunker 

Hill, June 17, 1775 

Bunker Hill Alfred B. Street. 

Declaration of Rights by ibhe Continental Congress 

Parliamentary Levity Reproved Earl of Shetburne. 

Effects of the Policy of England John Wilkes. 

Song, 1776 

The Duties of Patriots John Rutledge. 

Funeral Oration Dr. Morton. 

Instructions to Mr. Ezra Sargent, a Delegate to the Continental 

Congress, by the Inhabitants of the Town of Maiden, Mass. . . 

Song 

Assertion of the Rights of America Ricliard Henry L&e. 

Declaration of Independence, by the United States of America in 

CongTcss Assembled Thomas Jefferson. 

Supposed Speech of John Adams, in favor of the Declaration of 

Independence Daniel Webster. 

War and Washington : Jonathan Mitchel Sewall. 

Address to the American Troops before the Battle of Long Island, 

August 27, 1776 Gen. Washington. 

Charge to the Grand Jury of South Carolina Judge Drayton. 

Song of Marion's Men William Cullen Bryant. 

Expostulation with Parliament Edmund Burke. 

Proclamation Gen. Burgoyne. 



64 



65 



82 



89 



Answer to Burgoyne's Proclamation 99 

A Camp Ballad Francis Hojikinson. 101 

Charge to the Grand Jury of New York John Jay. 102 

Barbarity of Employing Indians in War Earl of Chatham. 104 

Protest against Ministerial Misconduct Earl of Chatham. 106 

Polly of Attempting to Conquer America Earl of Chatham, 107 

A Hymn William Billings. 109 

On the Choice of a War with America or with Prance, 

Charles James Fox. 110 

America Lost to Great Britain John Wilkes. Ill 

Address to the States, by the Continental Congress, May 26, 1779. . 113 
ISulogium on those who have Pallen in the Contest with Great 

Britaia, delivered Jaly 5, 1779 Hugh Henry Brackenridge. 114 



CONTENTS. IX 
Ex, Page 
liXX. Hymn at the Consecration of Pulaski's Banner, 1779, 

H. W. Longfellow. 116 
liXXI. Answer to Inquiries as to the Condition of America, Paris, 1780 

John Adams. 117 

LXXII. Anniversary Oration, delivered March 5, 1781 Thomas Dawes. 119 

liXXIII. Address from the Legislature of the State of New York to their 

Constituents, March 13, 1781 120 

LXXIV. An Englishman's Opinion of the American "War William Pitt. 123 

LXXV. The Attack on Fort Griswold T. K. Potter. 124 

LXXVI. InMemoriam Philip Freneau. 125 

LXXVII. Circular Letter from Congress to the States, December 17, 1781 .... 126 

LXXVIII. Eeturn of British Fugitives Advocated Patrick Henry. 127 

LXXIX. Election Sermon Dr. Stiles. 129 

LXXX. Address Gen. Washington. 131 

LXXXI. On Disbanding the Army David Humphreys. 132 

LXXXTT. National Dependence upx»n God Benjamin^ Franlclin. 133 

LXXXIIL The Federal Constitution James Wilson. 134 

LXXXIY. " " Benjamin Franlclin. 136 

LXXXY. " " Edmund EandolpJi. 137 

LXXXVL " " Patrick Henry. 139 

LXXXVIL " " Patrick Henry. 140 

LXXXVin. « " i Edmund Randolph. 142 

LXXXLX. Definition of Government r Wm. Gilmore Simms. 144 

XC . Inaugural Address to both Houses of Congress, April 30, 1789, 

Washington. 145 

XCI. "Washington as President Charles James Fox. 147 

XCII. The Toast Francis Hopkinson. 149 

XCIII. On the Danger of Violating our Treaties Fisher Ames. 149 

XCIY. Shall we break our Faith Fisher Ames. 151 

XCV. Hail Columbia Samuel Hopkinson. 153 

XCVI. Farewell Address Washington. 154 

XCVIL " " continued " 156 

XCVIIL " " " " 158 

XCIX. " " " " 159 

C. Adams and Liberty 161 

CI. Necessity for Preparation for a "War with France. 

Robert Goodloe Harper. 163 

CII. Injustice of the Alien and Sedition Laws John Randolph. 164 

CIII. Eulogy on "Washington Fisher Ames. 166 

CIX. 'Washington a Model for the Formation of Character. . . Wm. Wirt. 168 

CY. "Washington Eliza Cook. 170 

CYI. Eulogium on "VYashington C. Phillips. 171 

C YII. Genius of "Washington Ediuin P. Whipple. 172 



: CONTENTS, 

Ex. Page 

C VIII. Inaugural Address Thomas Jefferson. 174 

CIX. Against tlie Repeal of the Judiciary Act Gouverneur Morns. 175 

ex. Necessity of Avoiding a "War with France De Wilt Clinton. 177 

CXI. Necessity of Preparing for a "War v/ith France. . Gouverneur Morris. 178 

CXII. Song 180 

CXIII. Jefferson's Purchase of the Louisiana Territory . . Henry S. Randall. 181 

CXIV. War Discountenanced John Randolph. 182 

CXY. Justice Demanded for the Soldiers of the Bcvolutiou. .P. Sprague. 184 

CXVI. Pensioners' Muster, Aug. 3, 1807 185 

CXVII. Eemonstrance against the War of 1812-15 ^ . .John Randolph. 186 

(yXVIII. Reasons for Prosecuting the War John C. Calhoun. 188 

CXIX. The Star-Spangled Banner Francis Scott Key. 190 

CXX. On the Conduct of the War of 1812-15 Henry Clay. 191 

CXXI. Bight of Opposition Daniel Webster. 193 

CXXII. Song James Gales Percival. 194 

CXXIII. Addi-ess to the army at New Orleans, Dec. 18, 1814, 

Andrew Jackson. 195 

CXXIV. Retrospective View of the War of 1812-15 Henry Clay. 196 

OXXV. The American Flag. Joseph Rodman Dralce. 198 

CXXVI. The Missouri Compromise James Tallmadge. 199 

CXXVII. Our Country William Jewett Pabodie. 202 

CXXVIII. Liberty and Greatness '. Hwjh S. Legate. 203 

CXXIX. The American Pbevolution John Quincy Adams. 205 

CXXX. Ode composed after listening to the Oration of which the above 

forms a part William Cutter. 200 

CXXXI. The Example of America Francis Jeffrey. 207 

CXXXII. The Ship of State H. W.Longfellow. 208 

CXXXIII. Bunker EQU Monument Daniel Webster. 209 

CXXXIV. Ode for the Fourth of July Charles Sprague. 211 

CXXXV. Parting Address to La Fayette, Sept. 7th, 1825. .Jo7m Quincy Adams. 211 

CXXXVI. Reply to President Adams La Fayette. 213 

CXXXVII. New England and the Union S. S. Prentiss. 214 

CXXXVIII. New England's Dead •. Isaac McLellan." 215- 

CXXXIX. Appeal to the Republic Joseph Story. 217 

CXL. National Recollections the Foundation of National Character. 

Edward Everett. 219 

CXLI. The Young American Alexander H. Everett. 220 

CXLII. The Sword and the Staff John Quincy Adams. 221 

CXLIII. Consequences of American Independence Virgil Maxcy. 223 

CXLIV. Devotion to Country Alfred B. Street. 224 

CXLV. American History Gulian C. Verplanck. 225 

CXLVI. Ennobling Recollections of the Revolution Robert Y. Hayne. 227 

CXLVn. Ode Anne C.'Lynch. 228 



I 



Ex. 

CXLVIII. 

CXLIX. 

CL. 

CLI. 

Clill. 

CLIII. 



CLIV. 

CLY. 

CLVI. 

CLVII. 

CLYIII. 

CLIX. 

CLX. 

CLXI. 

CLXII. 

CLXIII. 

CLXIV. 

CLXV. 

CKSVI. 

CLXVII. 

CLXVIII. 

CLXIX. 

CLXX. 

CLXXI. 

CLXXII. 

CLXXIII. 

^ CLXXIV. 

■^ CLXXV- 

CLXXVI. 

CLXXVII. 

CLXXVIII. 

CLXXIX. 

CLXXX. 

CLXXXI. 

CLXXXII. 

CLXXXIII. 

CLXXXIV. 

CLXXXV. 

CLXXXVI. 

CLXXXVII. 

CLXXXVIII. 



CONTENTS. XI 

Page 

Bond of Union between Nortli and South Daniel Webster. 229 

The Union Must be preserved. " " 231 

Union and Liberty. .'. Thomas S. GrimJce. 232 

Appeal to the People of South Carolina Andrew Jackson. 233 

Indian's Fare-well Speech Black Hawk. 236 

Farewell Address to the People of the United States, 1837. 

Andrew Jackson. 237 

The United States Flag William Boss IVallace. 238 

Secession Doctrines Combated Daniel Webster. 240 

The Birth-Day of Washington , Rufus CJioate. 242 

" E Pltlribus Unum " John Pierpont. 243 

Eemonstrance against the "War with Mexico, 1 847 Thos. Corwin. 244 

Injustice of the War against Mexico JoM M. Berrien. 246 

Civil ^ar Deprecated. ..... ....... Henry Olay. 247 

Impossibility of Peaceable Secession , . .Daniel Webster. 249 

On the Admission of California into the Union. . . Wvi. H. Sevjard. 250 

Liberty Triumphant Daniel Webster. 252 

A Fourth of July Address on Secession Francis Lieber. 253 

Elegy Thomas Buchanan Read. 255 

Thff American Sailor R. F. Stockton. 257 

Old Ironsides Oliver Wendell Holmes. 258 

Eighty Years Ago Cliarles Sprague. 259 

Seasons for Celebrating the Fourth of July Abraham Lincoln. 260 

The Fourth of July. ... J, Pierpont. 261 

The Crisis John Greenleaf Whittier. 262 

Secession as viewed by a Yirginian .Joseph Segar. 263 

False Prophets .Emetine S. Smith. 264 

Shall we give up the Union Danie- S. Dickinson. 265 

A Song on our Country and her Flag Francis Lieber. 266 

Never, or Now Oliver Wendell Holmes. 268 

Appeal to Secessionists , Daniel S. Dickinson. 269 

Unseen Spirits 270 

" All of Them.". ." 271 

Stand by the Flag Joseph HoU. 273 

Kentucky Sophia H. Oliver. 275 

Conseguences of Secession. Edward Everett. 276 

The Massachusetts Volunteers W. S. Newall. 277 

Marching On George W. Bungay. 279 

Secession of Louisiana Considered Edioard Everett. 279 

Sword and Plough Charles Dawson Shanley. 281 

The Southern Confederacy, if recognized, becomes a Foreign Power, 

Edward Everett. 382 

The whole Story told in Rhyme 283 



xu 



Ex. 
CLXXXIX. 

cxc. 

CXCI. 
CXCII. 
CXCIII. 
CXCIV. 

cxcv. 

CXCVI. 

CXOVII. 

CXCVIII. 

cxcix. 

cc. 

cci. 

ecu. 

CCIII. 
CCIV. 

ccv. 

CCVI. 
CCVII. 

covin. 

CCIX. 

CCX. 

CCXI. 

CCXII. 

CCXIII. 

ccxrv. 

CCXV. 
CCXVI. 



CONTENTS. 

Paue 

Army Hymn Oliver Wendell Holmes. 285 

A War Hymn Theodore Tilton. 285 

On Board the Cumberland, March 7th, 1852 George H. Bolter. 286 

The Varuna George H. BoTcer. 289 

Thanksgiving-Eve, 1862 290 

The Picket Guard 291 

No Party Now— All for our Country Francis Lieber. 293 

The Fulfillment of Destiny Eoscoe ConJcling. 295 

The Heart of the War Dr. J. G. Holland. 297 

Address at the Consecration of the Soldiers' Cemetery, at Gettys- 
burg, November, 1863 Abraham Lincoln. 300 

Dirge for a Soldier George H. BoJcer. 301 

After the Battle '. 302 

A Thanksgiving Hymn Park Benjamin. 303 

I have a Country , 304 

Second Inaugural Address of President Lincoln, March 4, 1865 305 

Bestoration of the Flag to Fort Sumter, April 14, 1865, 

Henry Ward Beecher. 307 

Abraham Lincoln Rev. J. P. Thompson. 308 

Abraham Lincoln ^W. C. Bryant. 310 

Commemorative Address on the Death of President Lincoln, 

Parke Godwin. 310 

Abraham Lincoln 312 

Future of the Freedmen Andrew Johnson. 313 

Nature and Destiny of oiir Government '* " 316 

Dialogue— The Old Continental 318 

Dialogue— The Yankee Marksman William Bentley Fowle. 321 

Dialogue— Impressment of an American Seaman. . ..Epes Sargent. 323 

Dialogue— John Bull and Son William Bentley Fowle. 329 

Dialogue between Mr. Dole, Indian Commissioner, and Opothley- 

oholo and Lagarash, Indian Chiefs, 1862 Rebellion Record. 331 

Indian Names Lydia Huntley Sigourney. 333 



PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE. 



Exercise I.— MINISTRY ys. THE PEOPLE, 

Speech delivered in the Assembly of PennsTlvania, May, 1764, on the Occasion of a 
Petition from that Body, praying the "feing for a Change of Government. 

JOHN DICKINSON.* 

We are not the subjects of ministers, and therefore it is 
not to be wondered at if they do not feel that tenderness for 
us that a good king will always feel for his people. Men are 
not born ministers. Their ambition raises them to authority ; 
and when possessed of it, one established principle with them 
seems to be, " never to deviate from a precedent of power." 

Indeed, Sir, it is vain to expect that where the spirit of 
liberty is maintained among a people, public contests should 
not also be maintained. Those who govern and those who 
are governed, seldom think that they can gain too much on 
one another. Power is like the ocean, not easily admitting 
limits to be fixed to it. It must be in motion. Storms, 
indeed, are not desirable, but a long, dead calm is not to 
be looked for ; perhaps not even to be wished for. Let us 
not, then, in expectation of smooth seas and an undisturbed 
course, too rashly venture our little vessel, that hath sailed 
roimd our own well-known shores, upon the midst of the un- 

* Gov. Dickinson, at this time a member of the Pennsylvania Assembly, 
was several times afterward a member of the general Congress, and lost some 
popularity by opposing the Declaration of Independence, on the ground that 
■we were not strong enough, as a people, to take such a hazardous step with- 
out more certain assurance of foreign assistance. He vindicated his patriot- 
ism, however, by being, as he himself said when attacked on the subject, the 
only member of Congress who marched, immediately after the Declaration, to 
meet the enemy ! 

\ 



2 PATEIOTIC ELOQUENCE. ^ 

tried deep, without first being fully convinced that her make 
is strong enough to bear the weather she may meet with, and 
that she is well provided for so long and dangerous a voyage. 

E"o man. Sir, among us, has denied, or will deny that this 
province must stake on the event of the present attempt, 
liberties founded on the acknowledged rights of human na- 
ture, liberties that ought to be immortal ! The inhabitants 
of remote countries, impelled by that love of liberty which 
an all- wise Providence has planted in the human heart, de- 
serting their native soil, committed themselves with their 
helpless families to the mercy of winds and waves, and 
braved all the terrors of an unknown wilderness, in the hope 
of enjoying in these woods the exercise of those invaluable 
rights, which some unhappy circumstance had denied to 
mankind in every other part of the earth. 

Thus, Sir, the people of Pennsylvania may be said to have 
purchased an inheritance in its constitution, at a prodigious 
price; they have not hitherto been disappointed in their 
wishes ; they have obtained the blessings they sought for ; 
and I can not believe, unless the strongest evidence be offered, 
that they are now willing to part with that which has cost 
them so much toil and expense. 



Ex. II.— PROTEST AGAINST INJUSTICE. 

Speech, delivered in the British Parliament, 1765. 

COL. ISAAC BAEEE.* 

SiE : — I have listened to the honorable member who spoke 
last, with astonishment. Has he forgotten the history of the 
colonies ? — " Will these Americans, children planted by our 
care, nourished by our indulgence, protected by our arms, 
refuse their mite ? " 

* -Col. Barre, a person of considerable distinction in the British Parlia- 
ment, was a stanch friend of America throughout our Kevolutionary struggle. 
His claim to a superior knowledge of this country was not unfounded, he 
having been with General Wolfe during the campaign in Canada, and fought 
by his side at the siege of Quebec. It was in consequence of a severe wound 
received in this battle that Col. Barre, after an interval of thirty years, lost 
his sight, and remained blind for twelve years before his death, retaining, 
however, the cheerfulness and vivacity which had always characterized him, 
to the last. 



PEOTEST AGAINST INJUSTICE. 3 

They planted by your care ! ^o ; your oppression 
planted them in America. They fled from your tyranny, to 
a then uncultivated and inhospitable country, where they 
exposed themselves to almost all the hardships to which 
human nature is liable ; and among others, to the cruelty of 
a savage foe, the most subtle, and, I will take upon me to 
say, the most formidable of any people upon the face of the 
earth ; and yet, actuated by principles of true English lib- 
erty, they met all hardships with pleasure, compared with 
those they suffered in their own country, from the hands of 
those who should have been their friends. 

They nourished up by your indulgence ! They grew by 
your neglect of them. As soon as you began to care about 
them, that care was exercised in sending persons to rule 
them, in one department or another, who were, perhaps, the 
deputies of deputies to some members of this house, sent to 
spy out their liberties, to misrepresent their actions, and to 
prey upon them ; men whose behavior, on many occasions, 
has caused the blood of those sons of liberty to recoil within 
them ; men promoted to the highest seat of justice ; some, 
who, to my knowledge, were glad, by going to a foreign 
country, to escape being brought to the bar of a co'urt of 
justice, in their own. 

They protected by your arms ! They have nobly taken 
up arms in your defence \ have exerted a valor, amidst their 
constant and laborious industry, for the defence of a country 
whose frontier was drenched in blood, while its interior parts 
yielded all its little savings to your emoluments. 

And, believe me ; remember I this day told you so, that 
the same spirit of freedom whicli actuated that people at 
first, will accompany them still. But prudence forbids me 
to explain myself further. Heaven knows, I do not at this 
time speak from motives of party heat ; what I deliver are 
the genuine sentiments of my heart. 

However superior to me in general knowledge and expe- 
rience the respectable body of this House may be, yet I claim 
to know more of America than most of you, having seen and 
been conversant in that country. The people, I believe, are 
as truly loyal as any subjects the king has, but a people jeal- 
ous of their liberties, and who will vindicate them if ever they 
should be violated. But the subject is too delicate ; I will 
say no more. 



PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE. 

Ex. 111.— ELOQUENCE OF JAMES OTIS.'' 
(Supposed Speecli in Congress, 1765.) 



MRS. CHILD. 



England may as well dam up the waters of tlie Nile 
with bulrushes, as to fetter the step of freedom, more proud 
and firm in this youthful land, than where she treads the 
sequestered glens of Scotland, or couches herself among the 
magnificent mountains of Switzerland. Arbitrary principles, 
like those against which we now contend, have cost one king 
of England his life, another his crown — and they may yet 
cost a third his most flourishing colonies. 

We are two millions — one-fifth fighting men. We are 
bold and vigorous, and we call no man master. To the na- 
tion from whom we are proud to derive our origin, we ever 
were, and ever will be, ready to yield unforced assistance ; 
but it is not, and it never can be, extorted. 

Some have sneeringly asked, " Are the Americans too 
poor to pay a few pounds on stamped paper ? " No ! Amer- 
ica, thanks to God and herself, is rich. But the right to take 
ten pounds implies the right to take a thousand ; and what 
must be the wealth that avarice, aided by power, can not ex- 
haust ? True, the spectre is now small ; but the shadow he 
casts before him is huge enough to darken all this fair land. 
Others, in sentimental style, talk of the immense debt of 
gratitude which we owe to England. And what is the 
amount of this debt ? Why, truly, it is the same that the 
young lion owes to the dam, which has brought it forth on 
the solitude of the mountain, or left it amid the winds and 
storms of the desert. 

We plunged into the wave, v/ith the great charter of 
freedom in our teeth, because the faggot and torch were be- 
hind us. We have waked this new world from its savage 
lethargy, forests have been prostrated in our path, towns and 
cities have grown up as suddenly as the flowers of the trop- 
ics, and the fires in our autumnal woods are scarcely more 
rapid than the increase of our wealth and population. And 

* This spirited composition, although the production of an author of our 
own times, is inserted here as a successful imitation of the style of Mr. Otis, 
who was among the most vigorous and eloquent speakers of his day. He was 
a man of commanding character and versatile talents, and a leader of the 
popular party in its earlier development. He did not live to take part in the 
Revolution proper, but was killed by a stroke of lightning in May, 1'7'72. 



THE LIBEETT TEEE. 5 

do Tre owe all this to the kind succor of the mother country ? 
"No. ! we owe it to the tyranny that drove us from her^ — to 
the pelting storms which invigorated our helpless infancy. 

But perhaps others will say, "We ask no money from 
your gratitude — we only demand that you should pay your 
own expenses." And who, I pray, is to judge of their neces- 
sity ? Why, the king — (and with all due reverence to his 
sacred majesty, he understands the real wants of his distant 
subjects as little as he does the language of the Choctaws.) 
Who is to judge concerning the frequency of these demands ? 
The ministry. Who is to judge whether the money is prop- 
erly expended ? The cabinet behind the throne. In every 
instance, those who take are to judge for those who pay ; 
if this system is suffered to go into operation, we shall have 
reason to esteem it a great privilege, that rain and dew do 
not depend upon parliament, otherwise they would soon be 
taxed and dried. 

But, thanks to God ! there is freedom enough left upon 
earth to resist such monstrous injustice. The flame of lib- 
erty is extinguished in Greece and Rome, but the light of its 
glowing embers is still bright and strong on the shores of 
America. Actuated by its sacred influence, we will resist 
unto death. But we will not countenance anarchy and mis- 
rule. The wrongs that a desperate community have heaped 
upon their enemies, shall be amply and speedily repaired. 
Still, it may be well for some proud men to remember, that 
a fire is lighted in these colonies, which one breath of their 
king may kindle into such fury that all the blood of all 
England can not extinguish it. 



Ex. lY.—THE LIBERTY TREE* 

Ik a chariot of light from the regions of day, 

The goddess of Liberty came ; 
Ten thousand celestials directed the way, 

And hither conducted the dame. 

* The "Liberty Tree" was a great elm in Boston, under whicli the oppo- 
nents of the Stamp Act were accustomed to assemble. Persons supposed to 
be in favor of this detested act, were hung in effigy on the branches of this 
tree. 



PATRIOTIC ELOQUEIfCE. 

A fair budding branch from the gardens above, 

Where millions with millions agree, 
She brought in her hand, as a pledge of her love, 

And the plant she named Liberty Tree. 

The celestial exotic struck deep in the ground. 

Like a native it flourished and bore ; 
The fame of its fruit drew the nations around, ^ 

To seek out this peaceable shore. 
Unmindful of names or distinctions they came. 

For freemen like brothers agree ; 
With one spirit endued, they one friendship pursued, 

And their temple was Liberty Tree. 

Beneath this fair tree, like the patriarchs of old. 

Their bread in contentment they ate, 
Unvexed with the troubles of silver and gold. 

The cares of the grand and the great. 
With timber and tar they old England supplied, 

And supported her power on the sea ; 
Her battles they fought without getting a groat, 

For the honor of Liberty Tree. 

But hear, oh ye swains, ('tis a tale most profane,) 

How all the tyrannical powers. 
King, commons and lords, ai'e uniting amain. 

To cut down this guardian of ours. 
From the east to the west blow the trumpet to arms I 

Through the land let the sound of it flee ; 
Let the far %nd the near, all unite with a cheer, 

In defence of our Liberty Tree. 



Ex. Y.— COLONIAL RESISTANCE DEFENDED. 

. Speech, in Parliament, 1766. 

LORD CHATHAM.* 

Sir, I rejoice that America has resisted. Three millions 
; of people, so dead to all the feelings of liberty, as voluntarily 

* William Pitt, Earl of Chatham, was one of the greatest of British states- 
men and orators. From the time of his earhest remonstrance against the 
Stamp Act, to the day when he fell in a fit in the House of Lords, and waa 



COLONIAL RESISTANCE DEFENDED. . 7 

to submit to be slaves, would have been fit instruments to 
make slaves of the rest. With the enemy at their back, with 
our bayonets at their breasts, perhaps the Americans would 
have submitted to the imposition ; but it would have been 
taking an ungenerous, an unjust advantage. I am no court- 
ier of America — I stand up for this kingdom. I maintain 
that the parliament has a right to bind, to restrain America. 
Our legislative power over the colonies is sovereign and su- 
preme. When it ceases to be so, I would advise every gen- 
tleman to sell his lands, if he can, and embark for that coun- 
try. When two countries are connected together, like Eng- 
land and her colonies, without being incorporated, the one 
must necessarily govern ; the greater must rule the less, but 
so rule it, as not to contradict the fundamental principles 
that are common to both. 

If the gentleman does not understand the difference be- 
tween internal and external taxes, I can not help it; but 
there is a plain distinction between taxes levied for the pur- 
pose of raising a revenue, and duties imposed for the regula- 
tion of trade,.for the accommodation of the subject, although, 
in the consequences, some revenue might incidentally arise 
from the latter. 

The gentleman asks, when were the colonies emancipated ? 
I desire to know when they were made slaves ? But I 
dwell not upon words. When I had the honor of serving 
his majesty, I availed myself of the means of information 
which I derived from my office ; I speak, therefore, from 
knowledge. My materials were good : I was at pains to col- 
lect, to digest, to consider them, and I will be bold to affirm, 
that the profits to Great Britain from the trade of the col- 
onies through all its branches, is two millions a year. This 
is the fund that carried you triumphantly through the last 
war. This is the price that America pays you for her protec- 
tion. And shall a miserable financier come with a boast, 
that he can fetch a pepper-corn into the exchequer, to the 
loss of millions to the nation ! I dare not say how much 

carried out, never to return, his constant theme was the injustice offered to 
the American Colonies, the folly of attempting to coerce tSem, and the certain 
loss of them which would ensue to the Crown if their reasonable demands 
were not met. But the monarch whose interest he wished to serve, was blind 
and deaf to every thing save his own passions and prejudices ; and Chatham's 
subsequent prediction that the Stamp Act would be repealed, was fulfilled only 
to have the obnoxious measure replaced by others equally odious to the coun- 
try, whose allegiance, instead of being strengthened by such means, was soon 
to be cast off altogether. 



8 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE. 

higher these profits might be augmented. I am convinced 
that the whole commercial system might be altered to ad- 
vantage. You have prohibited where you ought to have en- 
couraged ; and you have encouraged where you ought to 
have prohibited. Much is wrong, much may be amended 
for the general good of the whole. 

A great deal has been said without doors, of the power, 
of the strength^ of America. It is a topic that ought to be 
cautiously meddled with. In a good cause, the force of this 
country can crush America to atoms. I know the valor of 
your troops, I know the skill of your officers. But on this 
ground, on the Stamp Act, when so many here will think it a 
crying injustice, I am one who will lift up my hands against it. 

In such a cause, even your success would be hazardous. 
America, if she fell, would fall like a strong man ; she would 
embrace the pillars of the State, and pull down the constitu- 
tion along with her. Is this your boasted peace ? Not to 
sheathe the sword in its scabbard, but to sheathe it in the 
hearts of your countrymen ? Will you quarrel with your- 
selves, now the whole House of Bourbon is united against 
you ? True, the Americans have not acted in all things with 
prudence and temper. They have been wronged, they have 
been driven to madness by injustice. Will you punish them 
for the madness you have occasioned ? Rather let prudence 
and temper come first from this side. I will undertake for 
America that she will follow the example. There are two 
lines in a ballad of Prior's, of a man's behavior to his wife,* 
so applicable to you and your colonies, that I cannot help re- 
peating them ; 

" Be to her faults a little blind, 
Be to her virtues very kind." 

Upon the whole, I will tell the House what is really my 
opinion. It is that the Stamp Act be repealed absolutely, 
totally and immediately. That the reason for the repeal be 
assigned, because it was founded on an erroneous principle. 
At the same time, let the sovereign authority of this country 
over the colonies be asserted in as strong terms as can be de- 
vised, and be made to extend to every point of legislation 
whatsoever; that we may bind their trade, confine their 
manufactures, and exercise every power whatsoever, except 
that of taking their money out of their pockets without their 
consent. 



A PLEA FOR REPRESENTATION. ^ 9 

Ex. VI.— ^ PLEA FOR REPRESENTATION. 
Speech in Parliament, 1766. 

LOED CAMDEN.* 

My Lords : — Wlieii I spoke last on this subject, I was 
indeed replied to, but not answered. In the mean time, I 
took the strictest review of my arguments ; I re-examined 
all my authorities ; fully determined, if I found myself mis- 
taken, publicly to own my mistake, and give up my opinion ; 
but my researches have more and more convinced me, that 
the British Parliament have no right to tax the Americans. 

My position is this — I repeat it, I will maintain it to my 
last hour — taxation and representation are inseparable ; this 
position is founded on the laws of nature ; it is more — it is 
itself an eternal law of nature ; for whatever is a man's own, 
is absolutely his own ; no man hath a light to take it from 
him without his consent, either expressed by himself or rep- 
resentative ; whoever attempts to do it, attempts an injury ; 
whoever does it, commits a robbery ; he throws down and 
destroys the distinction between liberty and slavery. Taxa- 
tion and representation are coeval with, and essential to, this 
constitution. There is not a blade of grass growing in the 
most obscui'e corner of this kingdom which is not, which was 
not ever represented since the constitution began ; there is 
not a blade of grass which, when ti;xed, was not taxed with 
the consent of the proprietor. Much stress has been laid 
upon the taxation of Wales, before it was united as it now is, 
as if the King, standing in the place of the former princes of 
that country, raised money by his own authority, but the 
real fact is otherwise ; for I find that long before Wales was 
subdued, the northern part of that principality had repre- 
sentatives, and a parliament, or assembly. As to Ireland, my 
lords, before that kingdom had a parliament, as it now has, 
when a tax j^as to be laid on that country, the Irish sent 
over here representatives, as your lordships will find if you 
will examine the old records. For these reasons, my lords, 

* Lord Camden was only one out of many among British statesmen wlio 
maintained, warmly though unsuccessfully, the cause of liberty in our own 
country, and earned, by their opposition to the iU-judged pohcy of the Crown, 
a title to our national gratitude. As there would be little to interest us in the 
history of most of these defenders, except their attachment to our cause, only 
those of them who are especially distingu^hed will hereafter be noticed sep- 
arately. 

1* 



10 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE. 

I can never give my assent to any bill taxing the American 
colonies, while they remain unrepresented ; for as to the dis- 
tinction of a virtual representation, it is so absurd as not to 
deserve an answer ; I therefore pass it over with contempt. 

The forefathers of the Americans did not leave their na- 
tive country, and subject themselves to every danger and 
distress, to be reduced to a state of slavery; they did not 
give up their rights ; they looked for protection, and not for 
chains, from their mother country ; by her they expected to 
be defended in the possession of their property, and not to be 
deprived of it ; for, should the present power continue, there 
is nothing which they can call their own ; or, to use the 
words of Mr. Locke : " What property have they in that 
which another may, by right, take, when he pleases, to him- 
self?" 



Ex. Yll.— THE GLORY OF LIBERTY. 

From a Sermon delivered at Boston, May 23, 1766. 

JONATHAN MATHEW.* 

We have before this seen times of great adversity. We 
have known seasons of drought, death, and spreading mortal 
diseases ; the pestilence walking in darkness, and destruc- 
tion wasting at noon-day. We have seen wide devastations 
by fire, and amazing tempests ; the heaven on flames, the 
winds and waves roaring. We have known repeated earth- 
quakes, threatening us with destruction. We have been 
under great apprehensions by reason of formidable fleets of 
an enemy on our coasts, menacing fire and sword to all our 
maritime towns. We have known times when the French 
and savage armies made terrible havoc on our frontiers, car- 
rying all before them ; when we have not been without fear, 
that some capital towns in the colonies would fall into their 
merciless hands. 

Such times as these we have known ; at some of which 
almost every face "gathered paleness," and the knees of all but 
the good and brave waxed feeble. But never have we 

* Dr. Mayhew was a clergyman of Boston, highly distinguished for his 
eloquence, learning and patriotism. He preached a sermon against the Stamp 
Act from the text, '* I would they were even cut off that trouble you ! " but 
disclaimed any sympathy with the rioters who were at the same time engaged 
in pillaging and destroying houses belonging to ofacers of the Crown. • 



THE GLOKY OF LIBERTY. 11 

known a season of such universal consternation and anxiety, 
among people of all ranks and ages in these colonies, as was 
occasioned by that parliamentary procedure which threaten- 
ed us and our posterity with perpetual bondage and slavery. 
For what is there in this world more wretched, than for 
those who were born free, and have a right to continue so, 
to be made slaves themselves, and to think of leaving a race 
of slaves behind them ; even though it be to masters con- 
fessedly the most generous and humane in the world ? Or 
what wonder is it, if, after groaning with a low voice for 
a while, to no purpose, we have at length groaned so loudly 
as to be heard more than three thousand miles ; and to be 
pitied throughout Europe, wherever it is not hazardous to 
mention even the name of liberty, unless it be to reproach 
it, as only another word for sedition, faction and rebellion ? 
. For myself, having from my childhood up, by the kind 
providence of my Grod, and the tender care of a good parent 
now at rest with him, been educated to the love of liberty, 
though not of licentiousness, which pure and virtuous passion 
was still increased in me as I advanced into manhood ; I 
would not, I can not now, though past middle age, relinquish 
the fair object of my youthful affections, liberty ; whose 
charms, instead of decaying with time in my eyes, have 
daily captivated me more and more. 

Once more hail, then, celestial maid ! Welcome to these 
shores again — welcome to every expanding heart ! Long 
inayst thou reside, among us, the delight of the wise, good 
and brave; the protectress of innocence from wrong and 
oppression ; the patroness of learning, art, eloquence, virtue, 
rational loyalty, religion ! And if any miserable people on 
the Continent or isles of Europe, after having been weakened 
by luxury, debauchery, venality, intestine quarrels, or other 
vices, should, in rude collisions, or now uncertain revolutions 
of kingdoms, be di'iven in their extremity to seek a safe re- 
treat from slavery in some distant clime ; let them find — 
oh, let them find one in America, under thy brooding, sacred 
wings ; where our oppressed fathers once found it, and we 
now enjoy it, by the favor of him whose service is the most 
glorious freedom ! Never, oh never, may he permit thee to 
forsake us, for our un worthiness to enjoy thy enlivening 
presence. By his high permission, mayst thou attend us 
through life and death, to the regions of the blessed, thy 
original abode, there to enjoy forever " the glorious liberty 
of the sons of God." 



12 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE. ' 

Ex. -VllL—THE WAY TO OBTAIN SUPPLIES FROM AMERICA. 
Speech, in Parliament, May 15, 1767. 

THOMAS POWNALL.* 

Aee you determined, Mr. Speaker, from hence to direct 
and regulate the quartering of the King's troops in North 
America ? Do it in a way that brings it home to the exec- 
utive power there to carry your directions and regulations 
into execution ; explain and amend your act ; make it prac- 
ticable ; make it effective ; and then you may fairly decide 
whether they deny your sovereignty or not. You will find 
they do not. And although you represent the assembly of 
the province of New York alone as having revolted against 
your power of taxation for the purpose of maintaining the 
troops — ^believe me, there is not a province, a colony, or a 
plantation, that will submit to a tax thus imposed, more 
than New York will. All have shown their readiness to 
execute this service as an act of their own ; all have, in their 
zeal to provide for it, by a grant of their own, provided a 
supply to, answer the expense ; but not one single assembly 
has acted or ever will act, under the powers and provisions 
of this act, as acknowledging, and in consequence thereof 
apportioning, assessing and levying the supply, as a tax im- 
posed by parliament. They have either acted without tak- 
ing notice at all of this act of parliament, or have contrived 
in some way or other to vary it in some particulars, sufficient 
to make the execution and the tax an act of their own. 

Try the conduct of every province and colony through 
by this rule, and you will find nothing particular in the case 
of New York. Don't fancy that you can divide the people 
on this point, and that you need only divide to govern ; you 
will by this conduct only unite them the more inseparably ; 
you will make the cause of New York a common cause, and 
will call up every other province and colony to stand forth 
in their justification, while New York, learning from the 
complexion of your measure how to avoid or evade the pur- 
port of your enforcing Bill, will susjoend the force of it, in- 

* Governor Pownall had held by royal appointment the office of Chief Magis- 
trate of Massachusetts Bay, and had done much by his wise and conciUatory 
measures to suppress the rising spirit of discontent among the colonists. He 
was not only a statesman and an orator, but an author, a treatise " On the 
Administration of the Colonies," and a " Description of part of North Ameri- 
ca," being among his published works. 



EXHORTATION TO SELF-DEFEN^CE. 13 

stead of suspending the Assembly of that province against 
which it is brought forward. 

It is a fact which the House ought to be apprised of, in 
all its extent, that the people of America, universally, unit- 
edly, and unalterably, are resolved not to submit to any in- 
ternal tax imposed ui^on them by any legislature, in which 
they have not a share by representatives of their own elec- 
tion. 

This claim must not be understood as though it were 
only the pretence of joarty leaders and demagogues ; as 
though it were only the visions of speculative enthusiasts ; 
as though it were the mere ebullition of a faction that must 
subside ; as though it were only temporary or partial ; it is 
the cool, deliberate, principled maxim, of every man of busi- 
ness in the country. 

They say that supplies are of good will, and not of duty : 
are the free and voluntary act of the giver, having a right 
to give, not obligations and services to be complied with, 
which the subject can not in right refuse; they therefore 
maintain, claim and insist upon it, that whatever is gii'en 
out of the lands or property of the people of the colonies, 
should be given and granted by themselves. 



Ex. IK,— EXHORTATION TO SELF-BEFEFCE. 

Boston, 1768. 

JOSIAH QUINCT.* 

If there ever was a time, this is the hour for Americans 
to rouse themselves, and exert every ability. Their all is at 
hazard, and the die of fate spins doubtful. British taxations, 
suspensions of legislatures, and standing armies, are but some 
of the clouds which overshadow the northern world. Now 
is the time for this people to summon every aid, human and 

* The name of 'Qiiincy has long been celebrated in the annals of Boston. 
The author of this spirit-stirring address was the third of the name who had 
filled honorable positions in the councils of this country. He died in April, 
1775, on his return from a voyage to Europe undertaken partly with the 
object of advancing the interests of the colonies, and left a son, bearing the 
same name, who has but now, (July, 1864,) departed from among us, after a 
dignified and useful life, at the age of ainety-two years. 



14 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE. 

divine ; to exhibit every moral virtue, and call forth every 
Christian grace. The wisdom of the serpent, the innocence 
of the dove, and the intrepidity of the lion, with the blessing 
of God, will yet save ns from the jaws of destruction. By 
the sweat of our brow we earn the little we possess ; from 
nature we derive the common rights of man ; and by charter 
we claim the liberties of Britons ! Shall we, dare we, pusil- 
lanimously surrender our birthright ? 

• Be not deceived, my countrymen ! Believe not those 
venal hirelings who would cajole you by their subtleties into 
submission, or frighten you by their vaporings into compli- 
ance. When they strive to flatter you by the terms " mod- 
eration and prudence," tell them that calmness and delibera- 
tion are to guide the judgment, courage and intrepidity 
command the action. When they endeavor to make us 
" perceive our inability to oppose our mother country," let 
us boldly answer : " In defence of our civil and religious 
rights, we dare oppose the world ! With the God of armies 
on our side, even the God who fought oar fathers' battles, 
we fear not the hour of trial, though the hosts of our enemies 
should cover the field like locusts. If this be enthusiasm, we 
will live and die enthusiasts." 

O my countrymen ! what will our children say, when 
they read the history of these times, should they find that 
we tamely gave away, without one noble struggle, the most 
inestimable of earthly blessings ! As they drag the galling 
chain, will they not execrate us ? If we have any respect 
for things sacred, any regard to the dearest treasure on 
earth, — if we have one tender sentiment for posterity, if we 
would not be despised by the whole world, — let us, in the 
most open, solemn manner, and with determined fortitude, 
swear, — " We will die, if we can not live, freemen ! " 



Ex. X.—A SONG TO THE HUNE OF " HEARTS OF OAK:' 

"Written July 4tli, 1768.* 

JOHN DICKINSON. 

Come, join hand in hand, brave Americans all. 
And rouse your bold hearts at fair Libekty's call ; 

* It is scarcely necessary to remind our young readers that the circum- 
stance of this date's agreeing with that of our national hoUday is only a curious 
coincidence. 



A SONG. 15 

"No tyrannous acts shall suppress your just claim, 
Or stain with dishonor Ameeica's name. 

Chorus, — In freedom we're born, and in freedom we'll live ; 
Our purses are ready — 
Steady, friends, steady, 
Not as SLxivES, but as fkeemeis-, our money we'll 
give. 

Our worthy forefathers — (let's give 'em a cheer,) 
To climates unknown did courageously steer ; 
Through oceans to deserts for freedom they came. 
And dying bequeathed us their freedom and fame. 

Chorus. — In freedom we're born, &c. 

Their generous bosoms all dangers despised. 
So highly, so wisely, their birth-rights they prized ; 
We'll keep what they gave — we will piously keep— 
jN'or frustrate their toils on the land or the deep. 

Chorus. — In freedom we're born, &c. 

The tree their own hands had to liberty reared. 
They lived to behold growing strong and revered ; 
With transport they cried, " S'ow our wishes we gain, 
" For our children shall gather the fruits of our pain." 

Chorus. — In freedom we're born, &c. 



How sweet are the labors tSat freemen endure, 
That they shall enjoy all the profits secure. 
No more such sweet labors Americans know, 
If Britons shall reap what Americans sow. 

Chorus. — In freedom we're born, &c. 

Swarms of placemen and pensioners soon will appear, 
Like locusts deforming the charms of the year ; 
Suns vainly will rise, showers vainly descend. 
If we are to drudge for what others shall spend. 

Chorus. — In freedom we're born, &c. ^ 

Then join hand in hand, brave Americans all, 
By uniting we stand, by dividing we fall ; 



16 PATEIOTIC ELOQUENCE. 

In so righteous a cause let us hope to succeed, 
For heaven approves of each virtuous deed. 

Chorus. — In freedom we're born, &c. 

All ages shall speak with amaze and applause, 
Of the courage we'll show in support of our laws ; 
To die we can bear, but to serve we disdain, 
For shame is to freemen more dreadful than pain. 

Chorus. — ^In freedom we're born, &c. 

This bumper I crown for our sovereign's health, 
And this for Britannia's glory and wealth ; 
That wealth and that glory immortal may be, 
If she is but just and if we are but free. 

Chorus. — ^In freedom we're born, &c. 



Ex. Ti..— TIMELY WARNINGS. 

♦ Speech in Parliament, April, 1769. 



THOMAS POWNALL. 



Sir : There is a general dissatisfaction and uneasiness, as 
well here as in America, at our falling back into that contro- 
versy and contest between the government and the colonies, 
which we were once so happily delivered from. All now 
are convinced that there are no means of deciding the con- 
troversy, that there are no hopes of putting an end to the 
contest. Every event that arises, raises fresh difficulty ; 
nothing but power can operate, and that can operate only to 
mischief. Power, thus used, will inflame and unite the colo- 
nies, as in one common cause, and every further exertion of 
that power will only press the people closer together, and 
render more intense and ardent that heat with which they 
are already inflamed. 

The legislatures of the colonies have been hitherto per- 
mitted to hold that check and control upon the government, 
under which the people whom they represent live, that they 
have granted, appropriated, and held the disposal of the pro- 
vision for its support. And although they complain of their 



TIMELY tV'ARNIN-GS. 17 

being aggrieved in having this power taken away from them, 
yet they have submitted to your authority, have manifested 
their obedience to your laws, and have paid your taxes. 
They have indeed petitioned against the exercise of this 
power of raising a revenue for this purpose, yet they obeyed 
before they complained. 

They are at the lowest point of submission. If you en- 
deavor to press them down one hair's-breadth lower, like a 
spring they will fly all to pieces, and they will never be 
brought to the same point again. 

They have humbled themselves in the hope, in the confi- 
dence, that as you are strong you will be merciful ; but if 
you continue to exert your strength, you will find them as 
sturdy as they have been humble. They will not oppose 
power to your power — they will not go into any acts of 
sedition — they will not commit any treason — ^but they will 
be impracticable. 

There have been strange violences and outrages in Amer- 
ica — the winds have beaten hard, the storm has been high. 
The state, like a ship, hath been driven into extreme dangers 
amidst shoals and breakers, but now all is peace ; there is a 
lull at this moment ; now then is the time to refit your rig- 
ging, to work out the vessel from amidst these breakers, and 
to get her under way, in her old safe course, and you may 
bring her to the harbor that you wish. 

Matters are now brought to a crisis at which they never 
will be again; if this occasion is now lost, it is lost forever. 
You may exert power over, but you never can govern an 
unwilling people ; they will be able to obstruct and pervert 
every efibrt of your policy ; they will render inefiectual every 
exertion of your government, and will shut up every source, 
one after another, by which you should derive any benefit or 
advantage from them. 

Take, for example, the duty on painters' colors. Can any 
one imagine that the people of America are under any neces- 
sity of importing this article into that country? Can any 
one imagine that there is no red or yellow ochre on that 
great continent ? Can any one suppose that a country which 
abounds with mines of lead, iron, and copper, hath not every 
color that the art of painting hath produced and used ? But 
if they had but one, and that the poorest pigment that was 
ever used, if a fancy was taken up at once to call this poor 
color the color of Liberty, every house, carriage, and ship 
would be painted with it. 



18 PATEIOTIC ELOQUENCE. 

In conclusion, as your authority and power has its full 
effect at this time ; as the people have submitted, are paying 
the taxes, and are at peace; as you have rejected their appli- 
cations, and renounced their principles ; as you are, at this 
hour, at perfect liberty, and masters of your own motives — 
this then is the proper time, the suitable occasion, that you 
should take to recur only to yourselves, to your own motives, 
to the principles of commerce, policy and justice. 



Ex. 'Kll.— REBUKE OF THE BRITISH MINISTERS. 

Speech, in Parliament, Jan. 9, 1770. 

COLONEL BARRE. 

With regard to our colonies, the conduct of administra- 
tion has been weak, irresolute, ineffectual, and disgraceful. 
Acts have been made by one set of ministers to inflame them, 
which by those who succeeded, have been rejDeated to ap- 
pease them. By a third administration, those unconstitu- 
tional acts, that had given birth to the most dangerous con- 
tention that ever was set on foot, concerning a subject that 
never should have been brought into debate, were revived, 
in order to inflame the colonies and drive them to extremity. 
When they resisted those unwarrantable acts, troops have 
been sent and quartered in their towns, in direct violation of 
the law, to dragoon them into a compliance. And now we 
hear from his Majesty that " the spirit of faction has broken 
out afresh in some of the colonies ''bf ISTorth America, in 
one of them proceeding to acts of violence, and of resistance 
to the execution of the law. The capital town of which col- 
ony appears, by late advices, to be in a state of disobedience 
to all law and government ; and has proceeded to measures 
subversive of the constitution, and attended with circum- 
stances that manifest a disposition to throw off" their depend- 
ence on Great Britain." 

And now, sir, I appeal to the whole House — I appeal to 
the things upon that bench — that wretched row of no-minis- 
ters, — if such a representation was a just one, of the honest, 
faithful, loyal, and till that moment, as subjects, irreproacha- 
ble people of the province of Massachusetts Bay ? And if 
not a just representation, how unfit to be proclaimed by the 
mouth of Majesty throughout all Europe ! I will venture to 



EEBUKE OP THE BEITISH MESISTEKS. 19 

say, sir, that all Europe knows it to be false. With what 
astonishment, then, must they be struck at the daring iniqui- 
ty of those by whose advice it was made ! To crown all, 
a governor is sent to cure these disorders, and to reconcile 
this contradictory system of court policy, who, with vinegar 
in one hand, and oil in the other, was to mix up a mess, 
which, if it did not remove the cause, was at least to melio- 
rate the symptoms. These were the astonishing measures 
by which the prejudices of the people in America were to be 
removed ; but his Lordship wa^s instructed to state the pro- 
ceedings of parliament as his Majesty's measures, and to ex- 
plain them according to his own notions of prudence. His 
Lordship's notions of prudence will, indeed, appear to be 
very extraordinary, for, in consequence of these instructions, 
he assured the assembly of Vii'ginia, that his Majesty would 
sooner lose his crowni than preserve it by deceit ; iDtimating, 
that his Majesty would support the measures of his present 
wise set of ministers at the hazard of his crown. 

But, according to the notions which other men have form- 
ed of prudence, this declaration was imprudent in itself, and 
still more imprudent with respect to the situation in which 
it was made. It was certainly imprudent to involve the 
measures of his Majesty with those of his ministry ; it was 
still more imprudent, as it was diametrically opposite to the 
sentiments of the people to whom it was addressed; and it 
was more than imprudence, it was madness or folly to make 
any assurance which might lead the people of America to be- 
lieve that the interposition of any set of ministers could in- 
fluence the British parliament to impose, or to repeal, any 
acts of taxation by which the people of America were to be 
affected. 

Is it, therefore, to be wondered at, that from such a gov- 
ernor and such instructions, the affairs of America should still 
remain in a state of distraction ? That the colonies, from such 
politicians and such politics, should conceive the most sanguine 
hopes of gaining their point, and shaking off their depend- 
ence upon the British senate ? To impose duties, one season, 
with the professed purpose of raising a revenue, and to take 
them off the next, as being contrary to the true principles of 
commerce, is an instance of weakness and inconsistency, not 
to be paralleled, but by other measures of the same ministry, 
with respect to the government of the same people. 

By this pitiful no-management of these no-ministers, the 
contest remains undecided ; and what they have not been 



20 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE. 

able to accomplish by wisdom and good policy, is to be effect- 
ed by military force ; soldiers are sent over in terrorem, and 
because capacity is wanting to give lawful authority its full 
vigor, unlawful violence is to supply the deficiency. 



Ex. TUl.— FIRST ANNIVERSARY OF THE " BOSTON 

MASSAOREy * 

Address delivered in Boston, March 5tli, 1771. 

JAMES LOVELL. 

Who are a free people ? not those who do not suffer actu- 
al oppression ; but those who have a constitutional check upon 
the power to oppress. 

Chatham, Camden and others, Gods among men, have 
owned that England has a right to exercise every power 
over us but that of taking money out of our pockets without 
our consent. Those I have named are mighty characters, but 
they wanted one advantage which Providence has given us. 
The beam is carried off from our eyes by the flowing blood 
of our fellow-citizens, and now we may attempt to remove 
the mote from the eyes of our exalted patrons. That mote, 
we think, is nothing but our obligation to England first, and 
afterwards Great Britain, for constant kind protection of our 
lives and birth-rights against foreign danger. We all ac- 
knowledge that protection. 

Let us once more look into the early history of this prov- 

* The 5th of March, lYYO, the day on which American blood shed by 
British hands first flowed in the streets of Boston, was long commemorated in 
the New England States as a crisis in the struggle for our liberties, and the 
anniversary did not cease to be regularly celebrated, even after the Fourth of 
July, 1776, formed a new point of attraction around which all ihQ impulses 
and memories of patriotism might cluster. The battle of Lexington was but 
a rekindling, after five years of smothered burning, of the fires which raged so 
fiercely in 1770. 

In justice to the British soldiers, it should be remembered that the so-call- 
ed " massacre" consisted of one volley of musketry, fired by a picket guard 
of eight men who had been provoked beyond endurance by insults and per- 
sonal attacks from a disorderly mob, and that the number killed was but five 
in all. It is to the credit of American candor and moderation, that when these 
men were tried for murder, all were acquitted but two, who were found guilty 
of manslaughter in a minor degree, John Adams and tTosiah Quincy (honored 
names !) voluntarily conducting their defence. 



BOSTON- MASSACEE." 21 

ince. We find that our English ancestors, disgusted in 
their native country at a legislation which they saw was sac- 
rificing all their rights, left its jurisdiction, and sought, like 
wandering birds of passage, some happier climate. Here at 
length they settled down. The king of England was said to 
be the royal landlord of this territory ; with him they enter- 
ed into mutual, sacred compact, by which the price of tenure, 
and the rules of management, were fairly stated. It is in 
this compact that we find our only legitimate authority. 

It is said that disunited from Britain we shall bleed at 
every vein. I can not see this consequence. The states of 
Holland do not suffer thus. But grant it true, Seneca would 
prefer the lancets of France, Spain, or any other power, to 
the bowstring, even though applied by the fair hand of Brit- 
annia. 

A brave nation is always generous. Let us appeal, there- 
fore, at the same time, to the generosity of the people of 
Great Britain, before the tribunal of Europe, not to envy us 
the full enjoyment of the rights of brethren. 

And now, my friends and fellow-townsmen, having declar- 
ed myself an American son of liberty and true charter princi- 
ples ; having shown the critical and dangerous situation of 
our birth-rights, and the true course of speedy redress, I shall 
take the freedom to recommend, with boldness, one previous 
step. Let us show that we understand the true value of what 
we are claiming. 

We know ourselves subjects of common law ; to that and 
the worthy executors of it, let us pay a conscientious regard. 
Past errors in this point have been written w^ith gall, by the 
pen of malice. May our future conduct be such as to make 
even that vile imp lay her pen aside. 

The right which imposes duties upon us, is in dispute ; 
but whether they are managed by a surveyor-general, a board 
of commissioners, Turkish janizaries, or Russian Cossacks, 
let these enjoy, during our time of fair trial, the common per- 
sonal protection of the laws of our constitution. Let us shut 
our eyes for the present, to their being executors of claims 
subversive of our rights. 

Watchful, hawk-eyed jealousy ever guards the portal of 
the temple of the goddess of Liberty. This is known to those 
who frequent her altars. Our whole conduct, therefore, I am 
sure, will meet with the utmost candor of her votaries ; but 
I wish we may be able to convert even her basest apostates. 

We are slaves until we obtain such redress, through the 



22 PATEIOTIC ELOQUENCE. 

justice of our king, as our happy constitution leads us to ex- 
pect. In that condition, let us behave with the propriety 
and dignity of freemen; and thus exhibit to the world a new 
character of a people which no history describes. 

May the all-wise and beneficent Ruler of the Universe 
preserve our lives and health, and prosper all our lawful en- 
deavors in the glorious cause of feeedom. 



Ex. TLY.—TEE CONTRAST. 

Speech in Parliapaent, Maj^l, 1771. 

, ^ EARL OF CHATHAM. 

My Loeds : — ^It is not many years since this nation was 
the envy and the terror of its neighbors. Alone and unas- 
sisted, it seemed to balance the half of Europe. I^or was the 
aspect of its affairs abroad more flattering than at home. 
Concord and unanimity prevailed throughout the whole ex- 
tent of the British empire. Whatever heats and animosities 
might have subsisted between the grandees, the body of the 
people was satisfied. No complaints, no murmurs were au- 
dible. Nothing was heard on every side but one general 
burst of acclamation and joy. But how is the prospect dark- 
ened ! How are the mighty fallen ! On public days the 
royal ears are saluted with hisses and hoots, and he sees 
libels against his person and government written with im- 
punity, juries solemnly acquitting the publishers. What 
greater mortification can befall a monarch ! Yet this sacrifice 
he makes to his ministers. To their false steps, not to his 
own, he owes his disgrace. 

My lords, were the sacrifice of our honor and interest 
abroad compensated by the wisdom of our domestic govern- 
ment, it would be some comfort. But the fact is, that Great 
Britain, Ireland and America, are equally dissatisfied, and 
have reason to be dissatisfied, with the ministry. The im- 
politic taxes laid upon America, and the system of violence 
there adopted, have unfortunately soured the minds of the 
people, and rendered them disaffected to the present parlia- 
ment, if not to the king. The imprudence and indeed the 
absolute madness of these measures demonstrates, not the 
result of that assembly's calm, unbiassed deliberations, but 



AITNIVERSAET OEATION. 23 

the dictates of weak, uninformed ministers, influenced by 
those who mislead the sovereign. 

The Americans had almost forgotten, in their excess of 
gratitude for the repeal of the Stamp Act, any interest but 
that of the mother country; there seemed an emulation 
among the different provinces who should be most dutiful 
and forward in their expressions of loyalty to their real ben- 
efactor. This, my lords, was the temper of the Americans ; 
and would have continued so, had it not been interrupted by 
your fruitless endeavors to tax them without their consent. 
But the moment they perceived that your intention was re- 
newed to tax them, their resentment got the ascendant of 
their moderation, and hurried them into actions contrary to 
law, which in their cooler moments they would have thought 
upon with horror. 

But, my lords, from the complexion of the whole of the 
proceedings, I think the administration has purposely irritated 
them into those violent acts for which they now so severely 
smart, purposely to be revenged on them for the victory 
they gained by the repeal of the Stamp Act, for this seems 
to be the only motive they could have had to break in upon 
that peace and harmony which then so happily subsisted be- 
tween them and the mother country. "" 



Ex. XY.—ANmv:ER8ARY ORATIOK 
Delivered March 5tli, 1772. 

DR. JOSEPH WARREN. 

The infatuation which hath seemed, for a number of 
years, to prevail in the British councils with regard to us, is 
truly astonishing ! What can be proposed by the repeated 
attacks made upon our freedom, I really can not surmise — 
even leaving justice and humanity out of the question. I do 
not know one single advantage which can arise to the British 
nation from our being enslaved. I know not of any gains 
which can be wrung from us by oppression, that they may 
not obtain equally from us, by our own consent, in the 
smooth channel of commerce ; we wish the health and pros- 
perity of Britain — we contribute largely to both. Does what 
we contribute lose all its value because it is done voluntarily ? 



24 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE. 

The amazing increase of riches to Britain, the great rise of 
the value of her lands, the flourishing state of her navy, are 
striking proofs of the advantages she derives from the com- 
merce of the colonies, and it is our earnest desire that she 
may continue to enjoy the same emoluments until her streets 
are paved with American gold, only let us have the pleasure 
of calling it our own while it is still in our own hands. But 
this, it seems, is too great a favor ; we are to be governed 
by the absolute command of others ; our property is to be 
taken away without our own consent. If we complain, our 
complaints are to be treated with contempt, if we assert our 
rights, that assertion is deemed insolence ; if we offer to sub- 
mit the matter to the impartial decision of reason, the sword 
is judged the most proper argument to silence our murmurs ! 
Surely this can not long be the case — the British nation will 
not suffer the reputation of their justice and their honor to 
be thus sported away by a capricious ministry. No ! they 
will in a short time open their eyes to their true interest ; they 
nourish in their own breasts a noble love of liberty ; they 
hold her dear, and they know that all who have once pos- 
sessed her charms, would rather die than suffer her to be 
torn from their embraces. None but they who set a just 
value upon liberty are worthy to enjoy her; your illustrious 
fathers were her zealous votaries ; when the blasting frown 
of tyranny drove her from public view, they clasped her in 
their arms — they cherished her in their generous bosoms — 
they brought her safe over the rough ocean, and fixed her 
seat in this then dreary wilderness. They nursed her infant 
age with the most tender care ; for her sake, they patiently 
endured the severest hardships, for her support they under- 
went the most rugged toils, in her defence they boldly en- 
countered the most alarming dangers. Neither the raven- 
ous beasts that ranged the woods for prey, nor the more fu- 
rious savages of the wilderness, could damp their ardor. 
While with one hand they broke the stubborn glebe, with 
the other they grasped their weapons, ever ready to protect 
her from danger. No sacrifice, not even their own blood, 
was deemed to rich a libation for her altar ! God prospered 
their valor ; he preserved her brilliancy unsullied ; they en- 
joyed her while they lived, and dying, bequeathed the precious 
inheritance to your care. And as they left you this glorious 
legacy, they have undoubtedly transmitted to you some por- 
tion of their heroic spirit, to inspire you with virtue to merit, 
and courage to preserve her ; and you surely can not, with 



EEDUCING A GREAT EMPIEE TO A SMALL OKE. 25 

such examples before your eyes, suffer your liberties to be 
ravished from you by lavv^less force, or cajoled away by flat- 
teries and fraud. 

May the Almighty Being who protected our venerable 
forefathers — who enabled them to turn a barren wilderness 
into a fruitful field, and so often stretched forth his arm for 
their salvation, — graciously preside in all our councils. May 
he direct us to such measures as he himself shall approve, 
and be pleased to bless. May we ever be a people favored 
of God. May our land be a land of liberty, the home of vir- 
tue, the asylum of the oppressed, a name and a praise in the 
whole earth, until the last shock of time shall bury the em- 
pires of the world in one common undistinguished ruin ! 



Ex. ^Yl.— RULES FOR REDUCING A GREAT EMPIRE TO A 
SMALL ONE. 

London, Sept. 1773. 

gentleman's magazine. 

An ancient sage boasted that though he could not fiddle, 
he knew how to make a great city of a little one. The sci- 
ence that I, a modern simpleton, am about to communicate, 
is the very reverse. 

I address myself to all ministers who have the manage- 
ment of extensive dominions, which, from their very great- 
ness, are become troublesome to govern, because the multi- 
plicity of affairs leaves no time for fiddling. 

In the first place, you are to consider that a great empire, 
like a great cake, is most easily diminished at the edges. 
Turn your attention, therefore, to your most remote prov- 
inces ; that as you get rid of them, the rest may follow in 
order. Take special care that the colonies are never incor- 
porated with the mother country, that they do not enjoy the 
same common rights, the same privileges in commerce, and 
that they are governed by severe laws, all of your enacting, 
and without allowing them any share in the choice of the 
legislators. 

However peaceably your colonies have submitted to 

your government, shown their affection to your interests, 

and patiently borne their grievances, you are to suppose 

them always inclined to revolt, and treat them accordingly. 

2 



26 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE. 

Quarter troops among them, who by their insolence may- 
provoke the rising of mobs, and by their bullets and bayo- 
nets suppress them. If, when you are engaged in war, your 
colonies should vie in liberal aid of men and money against 
the common enemy upon your simple requisition, and go far 
beyond their abilities, reflect that a penny taken from them 
by your-power is more honorable than a pound presented 
by your benevolence. Despise therefore their voluntary 
grants, and resolve to harass them by novel taxes. They 
will probably complain to your parliament that they are 
taxed by a body in which they have no representation, and 
that this is contrary to common right. They will petition 
for redress. Let the Parliament flout their claims, reject 
their petitions, refuse even to suffer the reading of them, and 
treat the petitioners with the utmost contempt. Nothing 
can have a better effect in producing the alteration proposed 
— for though many can forgive injuries, none ever forgave 
contempt. 

To make your taxes more odious, and more likely to pro- 
cure resistance, send from the capital a board of officers to 
superintend the collection, composed of the most indiscreet, 
ill-bred and insolent men you can find. Let these men, by 
your order, be exempt from all the common taxes and bur- 
dens of the province, though they and their property are 
protected by its laws. If any revenue officers are suspected 
of the least tenderness for the people, discard them. If 
others are justly complained of, protect and reward them. 

If the assemblies of your provinces shall dare to claim 
rights, and to complain of your administration, order them 
to be harassed by repeated dissolutions. If the same men 
are continually returned by new elections, adjourn their 
meetings to some country village where they cannot be ac- 
commodated, and keep them there during your pleasure ; — 
for this, you know, is your prerogative. And an excellent 
one it is, as you may manage it to promote discontents 
among the people, diminish their respect, and increase their 
disaffection. 

If you are told of discontents in your colonies, never be- 
lieve that they are general, or that you have given occasion 
for them ; therefore do not think of applying any remedy, 
or of changing any offensive measure. Redress no grievance, 
lest they should be encouraged to demand the redress of 
some other grievance. Grant no request that is just and 
reasonable, lest they should make another that is unreason- 



PROTEST AGA.INST BRITISH AGGEESSION". 27 

able. Take all the informations of the state of the colonies 
from your governors, and officers in enmity with them. 
Encourage and reward these leasing-makers ; secrete their 
lying accusations, lest they should be confuted ; but act 
upon them as the clearest evidence, and believe nothing 
you hear from the friends of the people. Suppose all their 
complaints to be invented and promoted by a few factious 
demagogues, whom if you could catch and hang all would 
be quiet. Catch and hang them accordingly, and the blood 
of the martyrs shall work miracles in favor of your purpose. 
Send armies into their country under pretence of protect- 
ing the inhabitants ; but instead of garrisoning the forts on 
the frontiers with those troops, order them into the heart of 
the country, that the savages may be encouraged to attack 
the fi'ontiers, and that the troops may be protected by the 
inhabitants ; this will seem to proceed from your ill-will or 
your ignorance, and contribute farther to produce and 
strengthen an opinion among them that you are no longer 
fit to govern them. 



Ex. XXn.— PROTEST AGAINST BRITISH AGGRESSION. 

Address to the Public, Dec, 15, 1773, 

SONS OF LIBERTY.* 

It is essential to the freedom and security of a people that 
no taxes be imposed upon them but by their own consent, or 
that of their representatives. For what property have they 
in that which another may, by right, take when he pleases 
to himself? And yet, to the astonishment of all the world, 
and the grief of America, the Commons of Great Britain, 
after the repeal of the memorable and detestable Stamp Act, 
reassumed the power of imposing taxes on the American 
colonies. And thus they who, from time immemorial, have 

* Associations bearing this title sprang up rapidly over all the northern 
colonies on the passage of the Stamp Act, with the avowed object of forcible 
resistance to that measure. The body grew very formidable to the Stamp offi- 
cers, who were generally obhged to resign, while the Stamps were either de- 
stroyed or allowed to remain unopened in the original packages, until after 
the repeal of the Act, The " Sons of Liberty '* did not cease their operations 
with this repeal, but continued their meetings to keep up the spirit of resist- 
ance to other acts of oppression. The address quoted above w* published 
the day before the destruction of the tea in Boston Harbor. 



28 PATEIOTIC ELOQUENCE. 

exercised tlie right of giving to, or withholding from the 
crown, their aids and subsidies, according to their own free- 
will and pleasure, do by the act in question deny us, their 
brethren in America, the enjoyment of the same right. As 
this denial, and the execution of that act, involves our slave- 
ry, and would sap the foundation of our freedom, the mer- 
chants and inhabitants of this city, in conjunction with the 
merchants and inhabitants of the ancient American colonies, 
have entered into an agreement to decline a part of their 
commerce with Great Britain, until the above-mentioned act 
shall be totally repealed. If, after this, the British succeed 
in procuring the sale of their tea, we shall have no property 
we can call our own, and then we may bid adieu to Ameri- 
can liberty. Therefore, to prevent a calamity which of all 
others is the most to be dreaded — slavery, and its dreadful 
concomitants — we, being influenced by a regard to liberty, 
and disposed to use all lawful endeavors in our power to trans- 
mit to our posterity those blessings of freedom which our an- 
cestors have handed down to us, do for this important purpose, 
agree to associate together under the name and style of 
" The Sons of Liberty " in New York, and engage our honor 
to and with each other faithfully to observe and perform the 
resolutions demanded for our safety in this exigency. 

And we hereby declare, that whosoever shall aid or abet, 
or in any manner assist in the introduction of tea from any 
place whatever into this colony, while it is subject to the pay- 
ment of a duty for the purpose of raising a revenue in Amer- 
ica, shall be deemed an enemy to the liberties of this country. 

And whether the duties on tea, imposed by this act, be 
paid in Great Britain or in America, our liberties are equally 
affected. And we declare, furthermore, that whoever shall 
transgress any of these resolutions, we ^ill not deal with, 
nor employ, nor have any connection with him. 



Ex. XVm.—KING GEORGE'S TEA-PARTY. 

1773. 

/Oh, King George is a very great man ! 

A great and a mighty man is he ; \ 

HeJias soldiers and ships at his command. 
But he couldn't make us swallow his Tea ! 



Ki:jfG geoege's tea-pabty. 29 

He sent it here in tlie year of grace, 

Seventeen Hundred and Seventy-three ; 

s^ But the nation made a very wry face, j 

\ And said, "I don't like the taste of your Tea." / 

" I '11 give you a taste of gunpowder, then, 

To improve the flavor a bit," said he ; \ 

" You're a little cranky and stiff, my men — \ 

Til show you the way to drink your Tea ! " / 

/But then a thought came into our heads ; — 

King iSTeptuhe is always thirsty," said we ; . 
" We'll give Mm a dose of the precious weed — 
It '11 suit his Majesty just to a T." 

went to my mother — (God bless her old head ! I 

Many's the cup she's made for me,) \ 

And I put on a simple face, and I said, > 
'' Do tell me how you make your Tea." 

"Laws bless us all ! The boy 's bereaved ! / 

What on earth do you want to know for ? " said she ; / 
\ " A pint of hot water, a spoonful of leaves ; 
: That 's the way to make good Tea." 

So down we went on board the ships ; 

'• Here 's a good many gallons of water," said we ; 
■ " And not to give old l^ep the slip, 
\ It '11 need a good many chests of Tea." 

/Sp we hauled them up from the hold in a trice, ; 

/ And emptied them all in the deep blue sea ; \ 

I And we hoped the old gentleman found it nice, j 
I And liked our way of making his Tea. 

/^ing George looked up, and King George looked down; | 
\ A wrathfully angry man was he, | 

-And he said, "As sure as I Avear a crown, 
" I'll make those people swallow their Tea ! " 

But when you do, my merry King, 
i Call all your neighbors in to see, 
1 For muskets shall rattle, and swords shall ring, 
V Before we swallow a cup of your Tea. 



30 PATEIQTIC ELOQUENCE. 

! Take off your tax, most gracious King ; 
Let free goods come to a people free ; 
Then call your poets in to sing 

How the Yankees have taken to drinking Tea. 



Ex. XIX.— ^iV OLD MAN'S AD VICE. 
Speecli delivered in Parliament, May 27, 1774. 

-EARL OF CHATHAM. 

My Loeds : I am an old man, and would advise the noble 
lords in office to adopt a more gentle mode of governing 
America ; for the day is not far distant, when America may 
vie with these kingdoms, not only in arms, but in arts also. 
Il is an established fact, that the principal towns in America 
are learned and polite, and understand the constitution of 
the empire as well as the noble lords who are now in office ; 
and consequently, they will have a watchful eye over their 
liberties, to prevent the least encroachment on their heredi- 
tary rights. 

This observation is so recently exemplified in an excellent 
pamphlet, which comes from the pen of an American gentle- 
man, that I shall take the liberty of reading to your lord- 
ships his thoughts on the competency of the British parlia- 
ment to tax America, which, in my opinion, puts this inter- 
esting matter in the clearest view : " The high court of 
Parliament," says he, " is the supreme legislative power over 
the whole empire ; in all free states the constitution is fixed ; 
atid as the supreme legislature derives its power and authori- 
ty from the constitution, it cannot overleap the bounds of 
it without destroying. its own foundation. The constitution 
ascertains and limits both sovereignty and allegiance ; and, 
therefore, his Majesty's American subjects, who acknowledge 
themselves bound by the ties of allegiance, have an equitable 
claim to the full enjoyment of the fundamental rules of 
the British constitution ; and it is an essential imalterable 
right in nature, engrafted into the English constitution as a 
fundamental law, and ever held sacred and irrevocable by the 
subjects within this realm, that what a man has honestly 
acquired, is absolutely his own; which he may freely give, 
but which can not be taken from him without his consent." 



31 

This, my lords, though no new doctrine, has always been 
my received and unalterable opinion, and I will carry it to 
my grave, that this country had no right under heaven to 
tax America. It is contrary to all the principles of justice 
and civil policy, which neither the exigencies of the state, 
nor even an acquiescence in the taxes, could justify upon any 
occasion whatever. Instead of adding to their miseries, 
which this bill undoubtedly does, adopt some lenient meas- 
ures, which may lure them to their duty ; proceed like a 
kind and affectionate parent over a child whom he tenderly 
loves, and instead of those harsh and severe proceedings, 
pass an amnesty on all their youthful errors ; clasp them 
once more m your kind and affectionate arms ; and I will 
venture to affirm, you will find them children worthy of 
their sire. 

But should their turbulence exist after your proffered 
terms of forgiveness, which I hope and expect this House 
will immediately adopt, I will be among the foremost of 
your lordships to move for such measures as will effectually 
prevent a future relapse, and make them feel what it is to 
provoke a fond and forgiving parent — a parent, my lords, 
whose welfare has ever been my greatest and most pleasing 
consolation. This declaration may seem unnecessary; but 
I will venture to declare, the period is not far distant when 
she will want the assistance of her most distant friends; 
but should the all-disposing hand of Providence prevent me 
from affording her my poor assistance, my prayers shall be 
ever for her welfare — length of days be ever in her right 
hand, and in her left hand riches and honor ; may her ways 
be ways of pleasantness, and all her paths be peace ! 



Ex. "SX.— ABANDONMENT OF TAXATION 

Speech, in Parliament, 1774. 



BISHOP OF ST. ASAPH's. 



It has always been a most arduous task to govern distant 
provinces, with even a tolerable appearance of justice. The 
viceroys and governors of other nations are usually tempor- 
ary tyrants, who think themselves obliged to make the most 
of their time ; who not only plunder the people, but carry 



32 PATEIOTIC ELOQUENCE. 

away their spoils, and dry up all the sources of commerce 
and industry. Taxation, in their hands, is an unlimited 
power of oppression ; but in whatever hands the power of 
taxation is lodged, it implies and includes all other powers. 
Arbitrary taxation is plunder authorized by law ; it is the 
support and the essence of tyranny, and has done more mis- 
chief to mankind than those other three scourges from heaven, 
famine, pestilence, and the sword. 

Let us reflect, that before these innovations were thought 
of, by following the line of good conduct which had been 
marked out by our ancestors, we governed our colonies in N^orth 
America with mutual benefit to them and ourselves. It was 
a happy idea, that made us first consider them rather as in- 
struments of commerce than as objects of government. It 
was wise and generous to give them the form and spirit of 
our own constitution ; an assembly, in which a greater 
equality of representation has been preserved than at home, 
and councils and governors such as were adapted to their 
situation, though they must be acknowledged to be very in- 
ferior copies of the dignity of this house, and the majesty of 
the crown. 

But what is far more valuable than all the rest, we gave 
them liberty. We allowed them to use their own judgment 
in the management of their own interests. The idea of tax- 
ing them never entered our heads. We made requisitions 
to them on great occasions, in the same manner as our 
princes formerly asked benevolences of their subjects ; and 
as nothing was asked but what was visibly for the public 
good, it was always granted ; and they sometimes did more 
than we expected. And let us not forget that the people of 
New England were themselves during the last Avar, the most 
forward of all in the national cause; that in the preceding 
war, they alone enabled us to make the treaty of Aix-la- 
Chapelle, by furnishing us with the only equivalent for the 
towns that were taken from our allies in Flanders ; and that, 
in times of peace, they alone have taken from us six times as 
much of our woollen manufactures as the whole kingdom of 
Ireland. 

In order to observe the strictest impartiality, it is but 
just for us to inquire what we have gained by these taxes 
as well as what we have lost. I am assured that out of all 
the sums raised in America the last year but one, if the ex- 
penses are deducted which the natives would else have dis- 
charged themselves, the net revenue paid into the treasury 



TKUE AND FALSE DIGNITY. 33 

to go in aid of the sinking fund, or to be employed in what- 
ever public services parliament shall think fit, is eighty-five 
pounds. Eighty-five pounds, my lords, is the whole equiva- 
lent we have received for all the hatred and mischief, and 
all the infinite losses this kingdom has suffered during that 
year in her disputes with Korth America ! Money that is 
earned so dearly as this, ought to be expended with great 
wisdom and economy. My lords, were you to take up but 
one thousand pounds more from ISTorth America upon the 
same terms, the nation itself would be a bankrupt. But the 
most amazing and most alarming circumstances are still be- 
hind. It is that our case is so incurable, that all this ex- 
perience has made no impression upon us. 

And yet, my lords, if you could keep these facts, which 
I have ventured to lay before you, for a few moments in 
your minds, supposing your right of taxation to be never so 
clear, yet I think you must necessarily perceive that it can 
not be exercised in any manner that can be advantageous to 
ourselves or them. We have not always the wisdom to tax 
ourselves with propriety, and I am confident we could never 
tax a people at that distance, without infinite blunders and 
more oppression. And to own the truth, my lords, we are 
not honest enough to trust ourselves with the power of shift- 
ing our own burdens upon them. Allow me, therefore, to 
conclude, I think unanswerably, that the inconvenience and 
distress we have felt in this change of our conduct, no less 
than the ease and tranquillity we formerly found in the pur- 
suit of it, will force us, if we have any sense left, to return to 
the good old path we trod in so long and found it the way 
of pleasantness. 



Ex. XXI.— TR UE AND FALSE DIGNITY. 

Speecli in Parliament, April 19tli, 1774. 

EDMUND BURKE.* 

They tell you, sir, that your dignity is tied to it. I know 
not how it happens, but this dignity of yours is a terrible in- 

* No name in Englisli Parliamentary history shines with a purer lustre 
than that of Edmund Burke. His splendid intellect, great acquirements, and 
brilliant powers of oratory, were all euUsted on the side of the American col- 
onists ; while his exemplary private life, his disinterestedness, uprightness and 
2* 



PA PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE. 

cumbrance to you ; for it has of late been ever at war with 
your interest, your equity, and every idea of your policy. 
Show the thing you contend for to be reason ; show it to be 
common sense ; show it to be the means of attaining some 
useful end ; and then I am content to allow it what dignity 
you please. But what dignity is derived from the persever- 
ance in absurdity, is more than ever I could discern. The 
honorable gentleman has said well — indeed in most of his 
general observations I agree with him — he says that this sub- 
ject does not stand as it did formerly. Oh, certainly not ! 
every hour you continue on this ill-chosen ground, your diffi- 
culties thicken on you ; and therefore my conclusion is, re- 
move from a bad position as quickly as you can. The dis- 
grace and the necessity of yielding, both of them, grow upon 
you every hour of your delay. 

Let us, sir, embrace some system or other before we end 
the session. Do you mean to tax America, and to draw a 
productive revenue from thence ? If you do, speak out ; 
name, fix, ascertain this revenue ; settle its quantity ; define 
its objects ; provide for its collection ; and then fight when 
you have something to fight for. If you murder, rob ; if you 
kill, take possession ; and do not appear in the character of 
madmen, as well as assassins, violent, vindictive, bloody, 
without an object. But may better counsels guide you ! 

Again I say it, revert to your old principles— seek peace 
and ensue it — lea.ve America, if she has taxable matter in her, 
to tax herself. Be content to bind her by laws of trade ; you 
have always done it ; let this be your reason for binding 
their trade. Do not burden them with taxes ; you were not 
used to do so from the beginning ; let this be your reason 
for not taxing. These are the arguments of states and king- 
doms. Sir, let the gentlemen on the other side call forth all 
their ability ; let the best of th^m get up and tell me what 
one character of liberty the Americans have, what one brand 
of slavery they are free from, if they are bound in their prop- 
erty and industry, by all the restraints you can imagine on 
commerce, and at the same time are made packhorses of ev- 

nobleness of character make him a champion which any cause may be proud 
to own. His speeches are masterpieces of English composition which can not 
be too carefully studied by any one aspiring to excellence in oratory. But no 
oratory, though resting on a solid foundation of truth and justice, could re- 
strain the madness of the British Government ; and one year from the day 
when Burke uttered the thrilling speech of which this extract forms a part, 
the first blood of the Revolution was spilled on the field of Lexington ! 



GEE AT BEITAIn's EIGHT TO TAX AMEEICA. 35 

ery tax yon choose to impose upon them, without the least 
share in granting them. When they bear the burdens of 
unlimited monopoly, will you bring them to bear the bur- 
dens of unlimited revenue too ? The Englishman in America 
will feel that this is slavery — that it is legal slavery, will be 
no compensation either to his feelings or to his understand- 
ing. 

If this be the case, ask yourselves this question ; " Will 
they be content in such a state of slavery ? " If not, look to 
the consequences. Reflect how you ought to govern a peo- 
ple, who think they ought to be free, and think they are not. 
Your scheme yields no revenue ; it yields nothing but dis- 
content, disorder, disobedience ; and such is the state of 
America, that after wading up to your eyes in blood, you 
could only end just where you began, that is, to tax where 
no revenue is to be found, to— my voice fails me ; my incli- 
nation indeed carries me no further — I will say no more. 



Ex. Tni.— GREAT BRITAIN'S RIGHT TO TAX AMERICA. 

speech in Parliament, April 19tli, 1774. 

EDMUND BURKE. 

But, Mr. Speaker, we have a right to tax America ! Oh, 
inestimable right ! Oh ! wonderful, transcendent right, the 
assertion of which has cost this country thirteen provinces, 
six islands,' one hundred thousand lives, and seventy millions 
of money ! Oh, invaluable right ! for the sake of which we 
have sacrificed our rank among nations, our importance 
abroad, and our happiness at home ! Oh, right ! more dear to 
us than our existence, which has already cost us so much, 
and which seems likely to cost us our all ! Infatuated min- 
ister ! miserable and undone country ! not to know that the 
claim of right, without the power of enforcing it, is nugatory 
and idle. We have a right to tax America, the noble lord 
tells us ; therefore we ought to tax America. This is the pro- 
found logic which comprises the whole chain of his reason- 

Kot inferior to this was the wisdom of him who resolved 
to shear the wolf What ! shear a wolf! Have you consid- 
ered the resistance, the difficulty, the danger of the attempt ? 



36 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE. 

/ 

ISTo, says the madman, I have considered nothing but the 
right. Man has a right of dominion over the beasts of the 
forest ; and therefore I will shear the wolf. How wonderful 
that a nation could be thus, deluded ! But the noble lord 
deals in cheats and delusions. They are the daily traffic of 
his invention ; and he will continue to play off his cheats on 
this House, so long as he thinks them necessary to his pur- 
pose, and so long as he has money enough at command to 
bribe gentlemen to pretend that they believe him. But a 
black and bitter day of reckoning will surely come ; and 
whenever that day does come, I trust I shall be able, by a 
parliamentary impeachment, to bring upon the heads of the 
authors of our calamities, the punishment they deserve. 



Ex. XXIII.— ^i)Z>i2^^;S' TO THE PEOPLE OF GREAT BRITAIN, 

SEPT 1774. 

BY DELEGATES FROM THE AMERICAN CONGRESS. 

Feiends and Fellow Subjects : When a nation, led to 
greatness by the -hand of liberty, and possessed of all the 
glory that heroism, munificence and humanity can bestow, 
descends to the ungrateful task of forging chains for her 
children, and instead of giving support to freedom, turns ad- 
vocate for slavery and oppression, there is reason to suspect 
she has either ceased to be virtuous, or been extremely negli- 
gent in the appointment of her rulers. 

In almost every age, in repeated conflicts, in long and 
bloody wars, as well civil as foreign, against many and pow- 
erful nations, against the open assaults of enemies, and the 
more dangerous treachery of friends, have the inhabitants of 
your island, your great and glorious ancestors, maintained 
their independence, and transmitted the rights of men and 
the blessings of liberty, to you their posterity. 

Be not surprised, therefore, that we, who ar^ descended 
from the same common ancestors ; that we, whose forefathers 
participated in all the rights, the liberties, and the constitu- 
tion you so justly boast of, and who have carefully conveyed 
the same fair inheritance to us, guaranteed by the plighted 
faith of government and the most solemn compacts with 
British sovereigns, should i-efuse to surrender them to men 
who found their claims on no principles of reason, and who 



ADDRESS TO THE PEOPLE OF GEEAT BEITAIIS'. 37 

prosecute them with a design that, by having our lives and 
properties in their power, they may with the greatest facili- 
ity, enshive you. The cause of America is now the object of 
universal attention; it has at length become very serious. 
This unhappy country has not only been oppressed, but abus- 
ed and misrepresented ; and the duty we owe to ourselves 
and posterity, to your interest, and the general welfare of 
the British empire, leads us to address you on this very im- 
portant subject. 

Know then, that we consider ourselves, and do insist that 
.we are and ought to be, as free as our fellow-subjects in Brit- 
ain, and that no power on earth has a right to take our prop- 
erty from us, without our consent. 

That we claim all the benefits secured to the subject by 
the English constitution, and particularly that inestimable 
one of trial by juiy. 

That we hold it essential to English liberty, that no man 
be condemned unheard, or punished for supposed offences, 
without having an opportunity of niaking his defence. 

That we think the legislature of Great Britain is not au- 
thorized by the constitution to establish a religion fraught 
with sanguinary and impious tenets, or to erect an arbitrary 
form of government, in any quarter of the globe. These 
rights, we, as well as you, deem sacred ; and yet, sacred as 
they are, they have, with many others, been repeatedly and 
flagrantly violated. 

Are not the proprietors of the soil of Great Britain, lords 
of their own property ? can it betaken from them without 
their consent ? will they yield it to the arbitrary disposal of 
any man, or number of men whatever? You know they 
will not. 

Why then are the proprietors of the soil of America less 
lords of their property than you are of yours ? or why should 
they submit it to the disposal of your parliament, or any other 
parliament or council in the world, not of their election ? 
Can the intervention of the sea that divides us, cause dispar- 
ity in rights, or can any reason be given why English sub- 
jects who live three thousand miles from the royal palace, 
should enjoy less liberty than those who are three hundred 
miles distant from it ? 

Reason looks with indignation on such distinctions, and 
freemen can never perceive their propriety. And yet, how- 
ever chimerical and unjust such discriminations are, the par- 
liament assert that they have a right to bind us in all cases, 



38 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE. 

without exception, whether we consent or not ; that they 
may take and use our property when and in what manner 
they please ; that we are pensioners on their bounty for all 
that we possess, and can hold it no longer than they vouch- 
safe to permit. Such declarations we consider as heresies in 
English politics, and which can no more operate to deprive 
us of our property, than the interdicts of the pope can divest 
kings of sceptres which the laws of the land and the voice of 
the people have placed in their hands. At the conclusion 
of the late war — a war rendered glorious by the abilities and 
integrity of a minister to whose eiforts the British empire 
owes its safety and its fame : at the conclusion of this war, 
which was succeeded by an inglorious peace, formed under 
the auspices of a minister of principles and of a family un- 
friendly to the protestant cause, and inimical- to liberty : we 
say, at this period, and. under the influence of that man, a 
plan for enslaving your fellow-subjects in America was con- 
cocted, which has ever since been pertinaciously carrying 
into execution. 



Ex.XXIY.—GUIi. aAGE AND THE MINISTRY. 

Speech in Parliament, Dec. 19, 1774. 

EDMUND BURKE, 

I CAN not sit down. Sir, without first saying a word or two 
on the solicitude which the honorable member has just ex- 
pressed for General Gage, and the troops under his command. 
It is, I confess, most humiliating and mortifying, and it is diffi- 
cult to say whether those who have put them into this posi- 
tion deserve most our compassion or our ridicule. It is, in- 
deed, an absurdity without parallel ; a warlike parliament, 
and a patientj forbearing general. I would not be under- 
stood to reflect on the gentleman, who, I understand, is a 
very worthy, intelligent, deserving man ; no. Sir, it is those 
who have sent him on such an errand that are to blame. 
The order of things is reversed in this new system. The 
rule of government now is to determine hastily, violently, 
and without consideration, and to execute indecisively, or 
rather not execute at all. And have not the consequences 
exactly corresponded with such a mode of proceeding? 



INEXPEDIENCY OF MAINTAINING TEOOPS IN BOSTON. 39 

They have been measures not practicable in themselves in 
any event, nor has one step been taken to put them in exe- 
cution. The account we have is that the General is besieg- 
ing and besieged ; that he had cannon sent to him, but they 
were stolen ; that he himself has made reprisals of a similar 
nature on the enemy ; and that his straw has been burnt, 
and his brick and mortar destroyed. It is painful to dwell 
on such monstrous and absurd circumstances, which could 
be only a subject of ridicule, if it did not lead to circum- 
stances of a very alarming nature. In fact, Sir, your army 
is turned out to be merely an army of observation, and is of 
no other use but as an asylum for magistrates of your own 
creation. I have heard of such places for thieves, rogues, 
and female orphans ; but it is the first time I ever heard of 
an asylum for magistrates. As to the protection of trade, on 
which the honorable gentleman has laid such stress, to pro- 
tect trade, in a place where all sorts of trade or commerce 
are prohibited, is a glorious task, but not a difficult one. 
The gentleman has also spoken of blocking up the port of 
Boston. I cannot pretend to deny that the harbor may be 
blocked up — it is undoubtedly true ; but to me this mode of 
blockade seems rather novel. Such an expression, it is cer- 
tain, might come with great propriety from me ; but I must 
confess,! never heard such a bull as that in my own country. 
At the entrance of Dublin harbor there is a north bull and a 
south bull ; but even there or elsewhere, such a bull as this 
I never heard. 



Ex. X^Y.— INEXPEDIENCY OF MAINTAININa TROOPS IN 

BOSTON. 



Speecli in Parliament, Jan. 20, 1775. 



EAEL OF CHATHAM. 



My Lords:— After more than six weeks' possession of 
the papers now before you, on a subject so momentous, at a 
time when the fate of this nation hangs on every hour, the 
ministry have at length condescended to submit to the con- 
sideration of the house intelligence from America with 
which your lordships and the public have long been ac- 
quainted. 



40 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE. 

The measures of last year, my lords, which have produced 
the present alarming state of America, were founded upon 
misrepresentation — they were violent, precipitant and vin- 
dictive. The nation was told that it was only a faction in 
Boston, which opposed all lawful government ; that an un- 
warrantable injury had been done to private property, for 
which the justice of parliament was called upon to order rep- 
aration ; that the least appearance of firmness would awe 
the Americans into submission, and upon only passing the 
Rubicon, we should find ourselves victorious. 

But, my lords, we find that instead of suppressing the op- 
position of the faction at Boston, these measures have spread 
it over the whole continent. They have united that whole 
people by the most indissoluble of bands — intolerable wrong. 
The just retribution is an indiscriminate, unmerciful proscrip- 
tion of the innocent with the guilty, unheard and untried. 
The bloodless victor is an impotent general, with his dishon- 
ored army, trusting solely to the pickaxe and the spade, for 
security against the just indignation of an injured and in- 
sulted people. 

My lords, I am happy that a relaxation of my infirmities 
permits me to seize this earliest opportunity of offering my 
poor advice to save this unhappy country, at this moment 
tottering to its ruin. I wish not to lose a day in this urging 
present crisis ; an hour now lost in allaying the ferment in 
America, may produce years of calamity ; but for my own 
part, I will not desert for a moment the conduct of this 
mighty business, unless nailed to my bed by the extremity 
of sickness ; I will give it unremitting attention ; I will 
knock at the door of the sleeping or confounded ministry, 
and will rouse them to a sense of their impending danger. 

When I state the importance of the colonies to this coun- 
try, I desire not to be understood to argue for a reciprocity 
of indulgence between England and America ; I contend not 
for indulgence, but justice, to America ; and I shall ever 
contend that the Americans owe obedience to us in a limited 
degree ; they owe obedience to our ordinances of trade and 
navigation ; but let the line be skilfully drawn between the 
objects of those ordinances, and their private, internal prop- 
erty. Let the sacredness of their property remain invio- 
late ; let it be taxable only by their own consent, given in 
their provincial assemblies, else it will cease to be property. 
The law that attempts to alter this disposal of it, annihi- 
lates it. 



TEIBUTE TO THE CONTINENTAL CONGRESS. 41 

When I urge this measure for recalling the troops from 
Boston, I urge it on this pressing principle, that it is neces- 
sarily preparatory to the restoration of your prosperity. 
It will then appear that you are disposed to treat amicably 
and equitably, and to consider, revise and repeal, if it should 
be found necessary, as I affirm it will, those violent acts and 
declarations which have disseminated confusion throughout 
your empire. Resistance to your acts was as necessary as it 
was just ; and your vain declarations of the omnipotence of 
parliament, and your imperious doctrines of the necessity of 
submission, will be found equally impotent to convince or 
enslave your fellow-subjects in America, who feel that tyr- 
anny, whether ambitioned by an individual part of the legis- 
lature, or by the bodies which compose it, is equally in- 
tolerable to British principles. 



:ex. xsnl— tribute to the continental CON'GEESS. 

Speecli in Parliament, Jan. 20, 1775. 



EARL OF CHATHAM. 



"When your lordships look at the papers transmitted to 
us from America ; when you consider their decency, firmness 
and wisdom, you can not but respect their cause, and v/ish to 
make it your own. For myself, I must declare and avow, 
that in all my reading and observation, (and it has been my 
favorite study ; I have read Thucydides, and have studied 
and admired the master states of the world,) I say I must 
declare, that, for solidity of reasoning, force of sagacity, and 
wisdom of conclusion, under such a complication of difficult 
circumstances, no nation or body of men can stand in pref- 
erence to the General Congress at Philadelphia. I trust it 
is obvious to your lordships, that all attempts to impose 
servitude upon such men, to establish despotism over such a 
mighty continental nation, must be vain, must be fatal. 

We shallbe forced, ultimately, to retract ; let us retract 
while we can, not when we Tnust. I say we must necessarily 
undo these violent oppressive acts. They must be repealed. 
Y"ou WILL repeal them. I pledge myself for it, that you will 
in the end repeal them. I stake my reputation on it. I will 
consent to be taken for an idiot, if they are not finally re- 
pealed. 



42 PATEIOTIC ELOQUENCE. 

Avoid, then, this humiliating, disgraceful necessity. With 
a dignity becoming your exalted situation, make the first 
advances to concord, to peace and happiness ; for it is your 
true dignity, to act with prudence and justice. That you 
should first concede, is obvious from sound and rational pol- 
icy. Concession comes with better grace and more salutary 
effects from superior power ; it reconciles superiority of power 
with the feelings of men, and establishes solid confidence on 
the foundations of affection and gratitude. 

Every motive, therefore, of justice and of policy, of digni- 
ty and of prudence, urges you to allay the ferment in Amer- 
ica, by a removal of your troops from Boston ; by a repeal 
of your acts of parliament ; and by demonstration of amica- 
ble dispositions towards your colonies. On the other hand, 
every danger and every hazard impend, to deter you from 
perseverance in your present ruinous measures. Foreign 
war hanging over your heads by a slight and brittle thread ; 
France and Spain watching your conduct, and waiting for 
the maturity of your errors, with a vigilant eye to America 
and the temper of your colonies, more than to their own 
concerns, be they what they may. 

To conclude, my lords ; if the ministers thus persevere in 
misadvising and misleading the king, I will not say that they 
can alienate the affections of his subjects from his crown ; 
but I will affirm that they will make the crown not worth 
his wearing ; I will not say that the king is betrayed, but I 
will pronounce that the kingdom is undone. 



Ex. XSNll.— ATTITUDE OF AMERICA TOWARDS GREAT 
BRITAIN. 

Speech in the Contmental Congress, Jan. 1775. 

JAMES WILSON.* 

And what, Sir, has been our course hitherto ? When 
our rights were invaded by her regulation of our internal 

* Mr. Wilson was a native of Scotland, and emigrated to this country 
about the time of the first Stamp Act disturbances. He enlisted warmly on 
the side of the patriots, was appointed a delegate to the Continental Congress, 
and afterward to the Convention for framing the Constitution. After the 
Government was established, he resumed the practice of law, which he had 
pursued on first coming to this country, and became Judge of the Supreme 
Court of the United States, 



ATTITUDE OF AMEEICA TOWAED GEEAT BEITAIN. 43 

policy, we submitted to England ; we were unwilling to op- 
pose her. The spirit of Liberty was slow to act. When 
those invasions were renewed ; when the efficacy and malig- 
nancy of them, were attempted to be redoubled by the Stamp 
Act ; when chains were formed for us, and preparations were 
made for riveting them on our limbs — what measures did 
we pursue ? The spirit of Liberty found it necessary now to 
act ; but she acted with the calmness and dignity suited to 
her character. Were we rash or seditious ? Did we discover 
want of loyalty to our sovereign ? Did we betray want of 
affection towards our brethren in Britain? Let our dutiful 
and reverential petitions to the throne — let our respectful, 
though firm, remonstrances to the parliament — let our warm 
and affectionate addresses to our brethren, and (we will still 
call them) our friends in Great Britain — let all those, trans- 
mitted from every part of the continent, testify the truth. 
By their testimony let our conduct be tried. 

As our proceedings during the existence and operation of 
the Stamp Act prove fully and incontestably the painful sen- 
sations that tortured our breasts from the prospect of dis- 
union with Britain ; the peals of joy which burst forth uni- 
versally upon the repeal of that odious statute, loudly pro- 
claim the heartfelt delight produced in us by a reconciliation 
with her. Unsuspicious, because undesigning, we buried 
our complaints, and the causes of them, in oblivion, and re- 
turned with eagerness to our former unreserved confidence^ 

But alas, the root of bitterness still remained. The duty 
on tea was reserved to furnish occasion to the ministry for a 
new effort to enslave and to ruin us ; and the East India 
Company were chosen, and consented, to be the detested in- 
struments of ministerial despotism and cruelty. A cargo of 
tea arrived at Boston. By a low artifice of the governor, 
and by the wicked activity of the tools of government, it 
was rendered impossible to store it up, or to send it back, as 
was done at other places. A number of persons unknown 
destroyed it. 

We behold, sir — with the deepest anguish we behold-^- 
that our opposition has not been as effectual as it has been 
constitutional. The hearts of our oppressors have not re- 
lented ; our complaints have not been heard ; our grievances 
have not been redressed ; our rights are still invaded ; and 
have we no cause to dread that the invasions of them will be 
enforced in a manner against which all reason and argument, 
and all opposition of every peaceful kind, will be vain ? Our 



44 PATEIOTIC ELOQUENCE. 

opposition lias Mtherto increased with our oppression ; shall 
it, in the most desperate of all contingencies, observe the 
same proportion ? 

Let ns pause, sir, before we give an answer to this ques- 
tion ; the fate of us, the fat^ of millions now alive, the fate 
of millions yet unborn, depends upon the answer. Let it 
be the result of calmness and of intrepidity ; let it be dicta- 
ted by the principles of loyalty, and the principles of liberty. 
Let it be such as never, in the worst events, to give us reason 
to reproach ourselves, or others reason to reproach us for 
having done too much or too little. 



Ex. XXV1I1.—THJEJ CALL TO ARMS. 

Haek ! hear ye the sounds that the winds on their pinions 

Exultingly roll from the shore to the sea. 
With a voice that resounds through her boundless dominions? 

'Tis Columbia who calls on her sons to be free ! 

Behold on yon summits where Heaven has throned her, 
How she starts from her proud inaccessible seat, 

With nature's impregnable ramparts around her. 
And the cataract's thunder and foam at her feet ! 

In the breeze of her mountains her loose locks are shaken. 
While the soul-stirring notes of her warrior song 

From the rock to the valley reecho, " Awaken, 

" Awaken, ye hearts that have slumbered too long ! " 

Yes, despots ! too long did your tyranny hold us. 
In a vassalage vile, ere its weakness was known ; 

Till we learned that the links of the chain that controlled us, 
Were forged by the fears of its captives alone. 

That spell is destroyed, and no longer availing. 
Despised as detested — pause well, ere ye dare 

To cope with a people whose spirit and feeling 

Are roused by remembrance and steeled by despair. 

Go, tame the wild torrent, or stem with a straw 

The proud surges that sweep o'er the strand that confines 
them; 



DIFFERENCE BETWEEN" EEBELLION^ AND REVOLUTION. 45 

But presume not again to give freemen a law^ 

J^or think with the chains they have broken to bind them. 

To hearts that the spirit of liberty flushes, 

Resistance is idle, and numbers a dream ; 
They burst from control, as the mountain stream rushes 

From its fetters of ice, in the summer's warm beam. 



Ex. TnX.— DIFFERENCE BETWEEN REBELLION AND 
REVOLUTION. 

Speech in Parliament, Feb. 6tli, 1775. 

JOHN WILKES. 

My Loeds : Whether the present state of the American 
colonies is that of rebellion, or of a fit and just resistance to 
unlawful acts of power, to our attempts to rob them of their 
property and liberties, as they imagine, I shall not declare. 
But I well know what will follow — nor, however strange and 
harsh it may appear to some, shall I hesitate to announce it, 
that I may not be accused hereafter of having failed in duty 
to my country on so grave an occasion, and at the approach 
of such direful calamities. 

Know, then, that a successful resistance is a revolution, 
not a rebellion. Rebellion, indeed, appears on the back of a 
flying enemy, but revolution flames on the breast-plate of 
the victorious warrior. Who can tell whether, in conse- 
quence of this day's violent and mad address to his majesty, 
the scabbard may not be thrown away by them as well as 
by us ; and w^hether, in a few years, the independent Ameri- 
can may not celebrate the glorious era of the revolution of 
1775, as we do that of 1688? The generous efibrts of our 
forefathers for freedom. Heaven crowned with success, or 
their noble blood had dyed our scafiblds, like that of Scot- 
tish traitors and rebels ; and the period of our history which 
does us the most honor would have been deemed a rebellion 
against the lawful authority of the prince, not a resistance 
authorized by all the laws of God and man ; not the expul- 
sion of a detested tyrant. 

But suppose the Americans to combat against us with 
more unhappy auspices than those under which we combat- 



46 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE. 

ed against James, T^rould not victory itself prove pernicious 
and deplorable ? Would it not be fatal to British as well as 
American liberty ? Those armies which should subjugate 
the colonies, would subjugate also their parent state. Mari- 
us, Sylla, Cgesar, Augustus, Tiberius — did they not oppress 
Roman liberty with the same troops that were levied to 
maintain Koman supremacy over subject provinces ? But 
the impulse once given, its effects extended much further than 
its authors expected ; for the same soldiery that destroyed 
the Roman republic, subverted and utterly demolished the 
imperial power itseli'. In less than fifty years after the death 
of Augustus, the armies destined to hold the provinces in 
subjection, proclaimed three emperors at once ; disposed of 
the empire according to their caprice, and raised to the 
throne of the Cesars the object of their momentary favor. 

I can no more comprehend the policy, than acknowledge 
the justice of youf deliberations. Where is your force, what 
are your armies — how are they to be recruited, and how sup- 
ported ? The single province of Massachusetts has, at this 
moment, thirty thousand men, well trained and disciplined, 
and can bring, in case of emergency, ninety thousand men 
into the field ; and, doubt not, they will do it, when all that 
is dear is at stake, when forced to defend their liberty and 
property against their cruel oppressors. Boston, perhaps, 
you may lay in ashes, or it may be made a strong garrison — 
but the province will be lost to you. You will hold Boston 
as you hold Gibraltar, in the midst of a country which will 
not be yours ; the whole American colonies will remain in the 
power of your enemies. In the great scale of empires you 
will decline, I fear, from the decision of this day ; and the 
Americans will rise to independence, to power, to all the 
greatness of the most renowned states ; for they build on 
the solid basis of general public liberty. • 

I dread the effects of the present resolution ; I shudder at 
our injustice and cruelty ; I tremble for the consequences of 
our imprudence. You will drive the Americans to despera- 
tion. They will certainly defend their property and liber- 
ties with the spirit of freemen ; with the spirit our ancestors 
did, and which I hope we should exert on a like occasion. 
They will sooner declare themselves independent, and risk 
every consequence of such a contest, than submit to the gall- 
ing yoke which the administration is preparing for them. 

You would declare the Americans rebels; and to your in- 
justice and oppression you add the most opprobrious Ian- 



OPINIOXS OF AN ENGLISH TEAVELLER IN AMEBIC A. 47 

guage and the most insulting scoffs. If you persist in your 
resolution, all hope of a reconciliation is extinct. The 
Americans will triumph, — the whole continent of ISTorth 
America will be dismembered from Great Britain, and the 
wide arch of the raised empu'e fall. But I hope the just ven- 
geance of the people will overtake the authors of these per- 
nicious counsels, and the loss of the first province of the em- 
pire be speedily followed by the loss of the heads of those 
ministers who first invented them. 



Ex. xxK.—OFI^YO^'^s of an English traveller m 

AMERICA. 

Speech in Parliament Feb. 27, 1775. 

TEMPLE LUTTRELL. 

I AM not. Sir, altogether unacquainted with the people of 
whom I am now speaking. Curiosity once led me to travel 
many hundreds of miles along their flourishing and hospitable 
provinces. I found in most of them the Spartan temperance, 
in many the urbanity of Athens ; and notwithstanding the 
base and groundless imputations on their spirit which the 
cankered tongue of prejudice and slander has poured forth 
against them, they will, I am confident, if set to the proof, 
evince the Roman magnanimity, ere Rome fell under scep- 
tred usurpation. But, Sir, if a foreign enemy should appear 
at your gates, will there be found among them many a Corio- 
lanus ? He stands single as the prodigy of forgiveness, in 
the annals of a people whose attachment to their native land 
was carried to the utmost height of enthusiasm. 

How soon that foreign enemy may appear at your gates, 
I know not. According to the horological predictions of a 
most enlightened state soothsayer, we have about seven 
years more of profound tranquillity with the House of Bour- 
bon to trust to ; but from the symptoms of our domestic dis- 
traction, and the improved state of the government and 
finances of our neighbors, I should judge it prudent to be 
somewhat better provided than we are at present for an 
early rupture ; not entirely to dismantle our ports and oui* 
coasts of soldiers and seamen, sent to immolate the martyrs 
to liberty of their own flesh and blood, on the distant conti- 
nent of America. 



48 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE. 

It is well known, through melancholy observation, drawn 
from the fate of the Assyrian, Persian, and Roman empires, 
that national societies, as well as the individual mortals of 
whom those societies are composed, have their nonage, their 
adult vigor, and their decline. Whatever share of indulgence 
and independency Great Britain shall, in this her florid and 
athletic stage, generously bestow on her rising colonies, they 
will no doubt amply repay to her in some future generation 
when she is verging towards that awful goal which must 
close her race of glory. 

The military coercion of America will be impracticable. 
What has been the fate of your famous Bills passed in the 
last session of the deceased parliament ? I mean. Sir, the 
Boston Port Bill, and the one for altering the charter of 
Massachusetts Bay. America, as an earnest of her triumph 
over the future labors for which envy and malice may reserve 
her, has, like another Hercules in the cradle, already grappled 
with those two serpents sent for her destruction. Neither 
shall we be long able to sustain the unhallowed war at so re- 
mote a distance; unexplored deserts, woodland ambuscades, 
latitudes to which few of our soldiery have been seasoned ; 
the southern provinces scarcely to be endured in the summer 
months, the northern provinces not approachable in the winter 
season ; shipwrecks, pestilence, famine, — the unrelenting in- 
veteracy and carnage of York and Lancaster will here be join- 
ed to all the elementary hardships and maladies of a bigot 
crusade. 

Now, Sir, who can look forward to a probable epoch in 
the red volume of Time, when the sword drawn in this quar- 
rel will be sheathed in peace ? Without a gift of preternat- 
ural foresight, I may remark that these are features in the 
aspect of infant America which denote at maturer years a 
most colossal force. And, to adopt their own words, what 
they contend for is that reasonable portion of liberty with 
which they were chartered as their birthright, not by any 
earthly potentate, but by the King of kings, "to make their 
lives happy in the possession of which liberty they do now 
hourly invoke that King of kings, or to make their death glo- 
rious in its just defence." 

Beware how you aggravate a spirit like this ! It will 
grow, it will strengthen, it will gather to itself every stream 
of patriotic feeling and love of freedom, until, like a roaring 
torrent, it will overwhelm you and bury you in the abyss of 
its waters ! 



ANNIVEESAEY ORATION". 49 

Ex. TS:n..— ANNIVERSARY ORATION. 

Delivered at Boston, Marcli 5, 1775. 

DR. JOSEPH WARREN. 

My ever honored fellow-citizens : You will not now ex- 
pect the elegance, the learning, the fire, the enrapturing 
strains of eloquence, which charmed you when a Lovell or a 
Hancock spoke ; but you will permit me to say, that with a 
sincerity equal to theirs, I mourn over my bleeding country. 
With them I weep at her distress, and with them deeply re- 
sent the injuries she has received from the hands of cruel and 
unreasonable men. 

Yet, though our country is in danger, it is not to be de- 
spaired of Our enemies are numerous and powerful, but we 
have many friends, determined to be free — and Heaven and 
earth will aid the resolution. On you depend the fortunes 
of America. You are to decide the important question on 
which rest the happiness and liberty of millions yet unborn. 
Act worthy of yourselves. The faltering tongue of hoary age 
calls on you to support your country. The lisping infant 
raises its suppliant hands, imploring defence against the 
monster slavery. Your fathers look from their celestial seats 
with smiling approbation on their sons, who boldly stand 
forth in the cause of virtue ; but sternly frown upon the in- 
human miscreant who, to secure the loaves and fishes to 
himself, would breed a serpent to destroy his children ! 

But pardon me, my fellow citizens, I know you want not 
zeal or fortitude. You will maintain your rights, or perish 
in the generous struggle. However difficult the combat, you 
never will decline it when Freedom is the prize. An inde- 
pendence of Great Britain is not our aim. l!^o ! our wish is 
that Great Britain and the colonies may, like the oak and 
ivy, grow and increase in strength together. But if pacific 
measures are inefiectual — if it should appear that the only 
way to safety is through fields of blood, I know you will 
never turn your faces from the foe, but will undauntedly 
press forward until tyranny is trodden under foot, and you 
have fixed your adored goddess Liberty fast by a Bruns- 
wick's side on an American throne. 

You then, who nobly have espoused your country's cause 
— who generously have sacrificed wealth and ease — who have 
despised the pomp and show of tinselled greatness — refused 
the summons to the festive board, and been de^f to the allur- 



50 PATEIOTIC ELOQUENCE. 

ing calls of luxury and mirth ; wlio have forsaken your 
downy pillow to keep your vigils by the midnight lamp, for 
the salvation of your invaded country ; you will reap that 
harvest of renown which you so justly have deserved. Even 
the children of your most inveterate enemies, ashamed to tell 
from whence they sprung, shall join the general cry of grati- 
tude to those who broke the fetters that their fathers forged. 
Having redeemed your country, and secured the blessing 
to future generations, who, fired by your example, shall emu- 
late your virtues, and learn from you the ^eavenly art of 
making millions happy — with heart-felt joy, with transports 
all your own, you will cry, " The glorious work is done ! " 
Then drop the mantle to some young Elisha, and take your 
seats with kindred spirits in your native skies. . 



Ex. XXXll.— USJBJZBSS TOIL. 

Speech in Parliament, March 16, 1775. 



LORD CAMDEN. 



My Loeds : — To conquer a great continent of 1,800 miles 
in length, containing three millions of people, all indissolubly 
united on the great Whig foundation of liberty, seems an 
undertaking not to be rashly engaged in. Where are you 
to get men and money adequate to the service and expense 
that the reduction of such a continent must require ? What 
are the ten thousand men you have just voted out to Bos- 
ton ? Merely to save General Gage from the disgrace and 
destruction of being sacked in his entrenchments. It is ob- 
vious, my lords, that you cannot furnish armies, or treasure 
competent to the mighty purpose of subduing America. It 
is obvious that your only effort can be by your naval power ; 
and admitting full success to this, what can you effect ? Mere- 
ly the blocking up of their ports, and the suppression of their 
trade. 

But will this procure the conquest of America ? ISTo, my 
lords, they are prepared to meet these severities, and to sur- 
mount them. They are applying themselves most diligently 
to agriculture, that great source of strength and indepen- 
dence. Foreseeing the important crisis, they h^ve provided 
agamst its wants ; and have imported into their country 



USELESS TOJL. 51 

stores of indnstry, implements of Imsbandiy and manufac- 
tures. They have united in the rejection of luxury and 
supei-fluous enjoyment. They have suppressed their public 
diversions, formerly common enough in theu' great and 
wealthy to^ms ; and every man attaches himself wholly to 
Xhe great business of his country. Such is the state of 
America. She has curtailed her expenses ; she has reduced 
her table ; she has clothed herself in mean and coarse stuffs ; 
she has adopted the vrise system of n-ugal industry. Her 
wants can be only ideal, imaginary, non-existent. 

But, my lords, what will be the state of this civilized, 
enlightened, dissipated and debauched country ? How shall 
the want of American commerce be supplied, of that com- 
merce which contributes the means of your luxury, of your 
enjoyments, of the imaginary happiness of this country ? 
"VTe may feel the loss of American connection, a loss which 
nothing can compensate ; but Ameiica will have little reason 
to regret her disconnection from England ; and, my lords, 
it is evident that England must one day lose the dominion 
of America. 

It is impossible that this petty island can retain in de- 
pendence that mighty continent increasing dailj in numbers 
and strength. To protract the time of separation to a dis- 
tant day, is all that can be hoped ; and this hope might be 
obtained by wise and temperate counsels ; not by preTripita- 
tion and violence uniting England against you ; for so it is, 
my lords ; there is not a man in America who can endure 
the idea of beiug taxed, perhaps to the amount of his whole 
property, by a legislation three thousand miles distant ; or 
who can septirat^ the idea of taxation from representation. 

And when you consider what has been your conduct to- 
wards Ameiica; when the severest and most compirehensive 
punishments are inllicted, without examining the offence; 
when their constitutional liberties are destroyed: when their 
charters and their rights are saciificed to the vindictive spirit 
of the moment ; when you thus tear up all their privileges 
by the roots ; is there a country under heaven, breathing the 
last gasp of freedom, that will not resist such op)pressions, 
and vindicate, on the oppressors' heads, such violations of 
justice ? 

And what, my lords, is the state into which the present 
measures have brought both countries ? At home, discon- 
tent and division prevail ; but in America, it was reseiwed 
for the wisdom of these times to produce such a union as 



52 PATEIOTIC ELOQUENCE. 

renders her invincible. The Americans are now united and 
cemented by the strongest ties. They are allied in the com- 
mon defence of every thing niost dear to them. They are 
struggling in support of their liberties and properties, and 
the most sacred rights of mankind. Thus associated by the 
strongest mutual engagements, and aided by their mutual 
strength, aided by the justice of their cause, I must assert 
and repeat, my lords, that your efforts against them must be 
without success, and your war impracticable. 



Ex. XKXm.— THE REVENUE QUESTION. 
Speech, in Parliament, March 22, 1775. 



EDMUND BUBKE. 



I, FOR one, protest against compounding our demands ; 
I declare against compounding, for a poor limited sum, the 
immense, ever-growing, eternal debt, which is due to gener- 
ous government from protected freedom. And so may I 
speed in the great object I propose to you, as I think it 
would not only be an act of injustice, but would be the worst 
economy in the world, to compel the colonies to a sum cer- 
tain, either in the way of ransom, or in the way of compul- 
sory compact. 

But to clear up my ideas on this subject ; a revenue from 
America transmitted hither — do not delude yourselves, you 
can never receive it — no, not a shilling. We have experience, 
that from remote countries it is not to" be expected. If, when 
you attempted to extract revenue from Bengal, you were 
obliged to return in loan what you had taken in imposition ; 
what can you expect from North America ? For certainly, 
if there ever was a country qualified to produce wealth, it is 
India ; or an institution fit for the transmission, it is the 
East India company. America has none of these aptitudes. 
If America gives you taxable objects, on which you lay your 
duties here, and gives you, at the same time, a surplus, by a 
foreign sale of her commodities to pay the duties on these 
objects which you tax at home, she has performed her part 
in the British revenue. But with regard to her^own inter- 
nal establishment ; she may, I doubt not she will, contribute 
in moderation. I say, in moderation ; for she ought not to 



THE REVENUE QUESTION". 53 

be permitted to exhaust herself. She ought to be reserved 
to a war, the weight of which, with the enemies we are 
likely to have, must be considerable in her quarter of the 
globe. Then she may serve you, and serve you essen- 
tially. 

For that service, for all service, whether of revenue, trade, 
or empire, my trust is in her interest in the British constitu- 
tion. My hold of the colonies is in the close affection which 
grows from common names, from kindred blood, from similar 
privileges and equal protection. These are ties which, 
though light as air, are strong as links of iron. Let the col-, 
onies alwa^'S keep the idea of their civil rights associated 
with your government, — they will cling and grapple to you, 
and no force under heaven will be of power to tear them 
from their allegiance. As long as you have the wisdom to 
keep the sovereign authority of this country as the sanctuary 
of liberty, the sacred temple consecrated to our common 
faith, wherever the chosen race and sons of England worship 
freedom, they will turn their faces toward you. The more 
they multiply, the more friends yOu will have ; the more ar- 
dently they love liberty, the more perfect will be their obedi- 
ence. 

Slavery they can have anywhere. It is a weed that grows 
in every soil. They may have it from Spain, they may have 
it from Prussia. But until you become lost to all feeling of 
your true interest and your natural dignity, freedom they 
can have from none but you. This is the commodity of 
price, of which you have the monopoly. This is the true act 
of navigation, which binds to you the commerce of the col- 
onies, and through them secures to you the wealth of the 
world. Deny them this participation of freedom, and you 
break that sole bond which originally made, and must still 
preserve, the unity of the empire. It is the spirit of the 
English constitution, which, infused through the mighty mass, 
pervades, feeds, unites, invigorates, vivifies, every part of the 
empire, even down to the minutest member. 

Is it not the same virtue that does everything for us here 
in England ? Do you imagine, then, that it is the land-tax 
act which raises your revenue ? that it is the annual vote in 
the committee of supply which gives you your army ? or 
that it is the mutiny bill which inspires it with bravery and 
discipline ? No ! surely no ! It is the love of the people ; it 
is their attachment to their government, from the sense of 
the deep stake they have in such a glorious institution, which 



54 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE. 

gives you your army and your navy, without which your 
army ^yould be a base rabble and your navy nothing but 
rotten timber. 

Magnanimity in politics is not seldom the truest wisdom ; 
and a great empire and little minds go ill together. If we 
are conscious of our situation, and glow with zeal to fill our 
places as becomes our station and ourselves, we ought to 
auspicate all our public proceedings on America, with the 
old warning of the church, Sursiim cordal We ought to 
elevate our minds to the greatness of that trust to which the 
order of Providence has called us. By adverting to the dig- 
nity of this high calling, our ancestors have turned a savage 
wilderness into a glorious empire; and have made the most 
extensive, and the only honorable conquests, not by destroy- 
ing, but by promoting the wealth, the number, the happiness 
of the human race. Let us get an American revenue as we 
have got an American empire. English privileges have made 
it all that it is ; English privileges alone will make it all that 
it can be. 



Ex. XXXIV.— SFIEIT OF ENTEBPRISE IN NEW ENGLAND, 

Bpeecla in Parliament, March 22, 1775. 

EDMUND BURKE. 

As to the wealth, Mr. Speaker, which the colonies have 
drawn from the sea by their fisheries, you had all that mat- 
ter fully opened at your bar. You surely thought those ac- 
quisitions of value, for they seemed even to excite your envy ; 
and yet the spirit by which that enterprising employment 
has been exercised, ought rather, in my opinion, to have rais- 
ed your esteem and admiration. And pray. Sir, what in the 
world is equal to it ? Pass by the other parts, and look at 
the manner in which the people of New England have of late 
carried on the whale fishery. 

Whilst we follow them among the tumbling mountains 
of ice, and behold them penetrating into the deepest frozen 
recesses of Hudson's Bay, and Davis's Straits, whilst we are 
looking for them beneath the Arctic Circle, we hear that they 
have pierced into the opposite region of polar cold, that they 
are at the antipodes, and engaged under the frozen serpent 
of the South Falkland Island, which seemed too remote and 



SPIEIT OF ENTERPRISE IN NEW ENGLAND. 65 

romantic an object for the grasp of national ambition, but is 
only a stage and resting place in the progress of their victo- 
rious industry. 

Nor is the equinoctial heat more discouraging to them 
than the accumulated winter of both the poles. We know 
that whilst some of them draw the line and strike the har- 
poon on the coast of Africa, others run the longitude, and 
pursue their gigantic game along the coast of Brazil. 'No 
sea but what is vexed by their fisheries. No climate that is 
not witness to their toils. I^either the perseverance of Hol- 
land, nor the activity of France, nor the dexterous and firm 
sagacity of English enterprise, ever carried this most peril- 
lous mode of hardy industry to the extent to which it has 
been pushed by this recent people ; a people who are still, as 
it were, but in the gristle, and not yet hardened into the bone 
of manhood.. 

When I contemplate these things ; when I know that 
the colonies in general owe little or nothing to any care of 
ours, and that they are not squeezed into this happy form by 
the constraints of a watchful and suspicious government, but 
that through a wise and salutary neglect, a generous nature 
has been suffered to take her own way to perfection ; when I 
reflect upon these effects, when I see how profitable they 
have been to us, I feel all the pride of power sink, and all 
presumption in the wisdom of human contrivances melt, and 
die away within me. My rigor relents. I pardon something 
to the spirit of liberty. 

In the character of the Americans, a love of freedom is 
the predominating feature which marks and distinguishes the 
whole ; and as an ardent is always a jealous affection, your 
colonies become suspicious, restive, and intractable whenever 
they see the least attempt to wrest from them by force, or- 
shuffle from them by chicane, what they think the only ad- 
vantage worth living for. 

The people of the colonies are descendants of EngKsh- 
men. England, Sir, is a nation, which still, I hope, respects, 
and formerly adored, her freedom.. The colonists emigrated 
from you, when this part of your character was most pre- 
dominant ; and they took this bias and direction the mo- 
ment they parted from your hands. They are, therefore, not 
only devoted to liberty, but to liberty according to English 
ideas, and on English principles. It happened, you know, 
Sir, that the great contests for freedom in this country were 
from the earliest times chiefly upon the question of taxing. 



66 PATEIOTIC ELOQUEl^CE. 

Most of the contests in the ancient commonwealths turned 
primarily on the right of the election of magistrates ; or on 
the balance among the several orders of the state. But in 
England it was otherwise. On this point of taxes the ablest 
pens and the most eloquent tongues have been exercised ; 
the greatest spirits have acted and suffered. 

They have taken infinite pains to inculcate, as a funda- 
mental principle, that, in all monarchies, the people must in 
themselves, mediately or immediately, possess the power of 
granting their own money, or no shadow of liberty could 
exist. The colonies draw from you, as with their life-blood, 
their ideas and principles. Their love of liberty, as with you, 
is fixed and attached on this specific point of taxing. Liberty 
might be safe, or might be endangered in twenty other par- 
ticulars, without their being much pleased or alarmed. Here 
they felt its pulse ; and as they found that beat, they thought 
themselves sick or sound. I do not say whether they were 
right or wrong in applying your general arguments to their 
own case. The fact is, they did thus apply those arguments, 
and your mode of governing them, whether through lenity 
or indolence, through wisdom or mistake, confirmed them in 
the imagination that they, as well as you, had an interest in 
these common principles. 



Ex. XXXV.—ZJEJXmGTOI^* 

AprU 19, 1775. 

OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 

Slowly the mist o'er the meadow was creeping. 

Bright on the dewy buds glistened the sun, 
When from his couch, while his children were sleeping, 
Rose the bold rebel and shouldered his gun. 
Waving her golden veil 
Over the silent dale 
Blithe looked the morning on cottage and spire ; 

* It having been found impossible to obtain sufficient Revolutionary poe- 
try (of a suitable kind) to give variety to the selections, such as refers to well- 
known events in our history, although written in more modern times, will be 
introduced in its appropriate chronological order. 



LEXINGTOIT. 67 

Hushed was his parting sigh, 
"While from his noble eye 
Flashed the last sparkle of liberty's fire. 

On the smooth green where the fresh leaf is springing, 

Calmly the first-born of glory have met ; 
Hark ! the death volley around them is ringing ! 
Look ! with their life-blood the young grass is wet ! 

Faint is the feeble breath 

Murmuring low in death, 
" Tell to our sons how their fathers have died ; " 

Nerveless the iron hand. 

Raised for its native land. 
Lies by the weapon that gleams at its side. 

Over the hill-sides the wild knell is tolling. 

From their far hamlets'the yeomanry come ; 
As through the storm-clouds the thunder-burst rolling, 
Circles the beat of the mustering drum. 

Fast on the soldier's path 

Darken the waves of wrath ; 
Long have they gathered and loud shall they fall; 

Red glares the musket's flash. 

Sharp rings the rifle's crash, 
Blazing and clanging from thicket and wall. 

Gaily the plume of the horseman was dancing, 

Never to shadow his cold brow again ; 
Proudly at morning the war-steed was prancing, 
Reeking and panting he droops on the rein. 

Pale is the lip of scorn, 

Voiceless the trumpet horn. 
Torn is the silken-fringed red cross on high ; 

Many a belted breast 

Low on the turf shall rest. 
Ere the dark hunters the herd have passed by. 

Snow-girdled crags where the hoarse wind is raving, 

Rocks where the weary floods murmur and wail, 
Wilds where the fern by the furrow is waving. 
Reeled with the echoes that rode on the gale. 
Far as the tempest thrills 
Over the darkened hills, 
Far as the sunshine streams over the plain, 
3* 



58 PATEIOTIC ELOQUENCE.* 

Roused by the tyrant band, 
"Woke all the mighty land, 
Girded for battle, from mountain to main. 

Green be the graves where her martyrs are lying ! 

Shroudless and tombless they sank to their rest, — 
While o'er their ashes the starry fold flying 
Wraps the proud eagle they roused from his nest. 

Borne on her northern pine 

Long o'er the foaming brine, 
Spread her broad banner to storm and to sun ; 

Heaven keep her ever free, 

Wide as o'er land and sea 
Floats the fair emblem her heroes have won. 



Ex. XKXV.—ADDRUSS OF THE CONGRESS OF MASSACHU- 
SETTS BAY TO THE INHABITANTS OF GREAT BRITAIN. 

April 26, 1775. 

Feiends and fellow subjects : Hostilities are at length 
commenced in this colony by the troops under the command 
of General Gage, and it being of the greatest importance 
that an early, true and authentic account of this inhuman 
proceeding should be known to you, the Congress of this 
colony think it proper to address you on the alarming occa- 
sion. 

By the clearest depositions relative to this transaction, it 
will appear that on the night preceding the 1 9th of April, 
instant, a body of the king's troops, under command of Colo- 
nel Smith, were secretly landed at Cambridge, with an ap- 
parent design to take or destroy the military and other stores, 
provided for the defence of this colony, and deposited at 
Concord — that some inhabitants of the colony, on the night 
aforesaid, whilst travelling peaceably on the road between 
Boston and Concord were seized and greatly abused by armed 
men, who appeared to be officers of General Gage's army — that 
the town of Lexington, by these means, was alarmed, and a 
company of the inhabitants mustered on the occasion — that 
the regular troops on their way to Concord, marched into the 
said town of Lexington, and the said company, on their ap- 



ADDEESS TO THE IXHABITAiXTS OF GREAT BRITADf. 59 

preach, began to disperse — that, notwithstanding this, the reg- 
ulars rushed on with great violence and first began hostilities, 
by firing on said Lexington company, whereby they killed 
eight, and wounded several others — that the regulars contin- 
ued their fire, until those of said company who were neither 
killed nor wounded, had made their escape — that Colonel 
Smith, with the detachment, then marched to Concord, where 
a number of provincials were again fired on by the troops, 
two of them killed and several woimded, before the provincials 
fired on them — and that these hostile measures of the troops 
produced an engagement that lasted through the day, in 
which many of the provincials, and more of the regular 
troops, were killed and Avounded. 

To give a particular account of the ravages of the troops, 
as they retreated from Concord to Charlestown, would be very 
difficult, if not impracticable ; let it suffice to say, that a great 
number of the houses on the road were plundered and ren- 
dered unfit for use ; several were burnt ; women in child-bed 
were driven by the soldiery naked into the streets ; old men 
remaining peaceably in their houses were shot dead, and 
such scenes exhibited as would disgrace the annals of the 
most uncivilized nation. "^ 

These, brethren, are marks of ministerial vengeance 
against this colony for refusing, with her sister colonies, a 
submission to slavery; but they have not yet detached us 
from our royal sovereign. We profess to be his loyal and 
dutiful subjects, and so hardly dealt with as we have been, 
are still ready, with our lives and fortunes, to defend his per- 
son, family, crown and dignity. Nevertheless, to the perse- 
cution and tyranny of his cruel ministry, we will not tamely 
submit ; appealing to Heaven for the justice of our cause, 
we determine to die or be free. 

We can not think that the honor, wisdom and valor of 
Britons will sufier them to be longer inactive spectators of » 
measures in which they themselves are so deeply interested 
— measures pursued in opposition to the solemn protests of 
many noble lords, and expressed sense of conspicuous com- 
moners, whose knowledge and virtue have long characterized 
them as some of the greatest men in the nation — measures 
executed contrary to the interests, petitions, and resolves of 
many large, respectable and opulent counties, cities, and bor- 
oughs in Great Britain — measures highly incompatible with 
justice, but still pursued with a specious pretence of easing" 
the nation of its burthens — measures which, if successful, 



60 PATEIOTIC ELOQUENCE. 

must end in the ruin and slavery of Britain, as well as the 
persecuted American colonies. 

We sincerely hope that the Great Sovereign of the Uni- 
verse, who hath so often appeared for the English nation, 
will support you in every rational and manly exertion with 
these colonies, for saving it from ruin, and that, in a consti- 
tutional connection with the mother country, we shall soon 
be altogether a free and happy people. 



Ex. XXX.YI.— WAE INEVITABLE. 

Speech in the Continental Congress, 1775. 

PATRICK HENRY.* 

Me. Pkesident : It is natural for man to indulge in the 
illusions of hope. We aro apt to shut our eyes against a 
painful truth ; and listen to the song of that syren till she 
turns us into beasts. Is this the part of wise men, engaged 
in a great and arduous struggle for liberty ? Are we dispos- 
ed to be of the number of those who, having eyes, see not, 
and having ears, hear not, the things which so nearly con- 
cern our temporal salvation? For my part, whatever an- 
guish of spirit it may cost, I am willing to know the whole 
truth ; to know the worst, and to provide for it. 

I have but one lamp by which my feet are guided ; and 
that is the lamp of experience. I know of no way of judg- 
ing of the future but by the past. And judging by the past, 
I wish to know what there has been in the conduct of the 
British ministry for the last ten years to justify those hopes 
with which gentlemen have been pleased to solace themselves 
and the house ? Is it that insidious smile with which our 
petition has been lately received ? Trust it not, Sir : it will 
prove a snare to your feet. Suffer not yourselves to be be- 

* Patrick Henry was a born orator. With very little preparatory study, 
and after a youth spent in agricultural and mercantile pursuits, he began to 
practise law, and distinguished himself so much in his profession that he was 
soon called into public life, where he filled one oflBce after another until the 
new government was fairly in operation, after which he resumed his attend- 
ance at the bar. His powers of oratory are said by those who heard him to 
have been indescribable, and this is given as a reason why so few of his 
speeches have come down to us, except traditionally. He was a native of 
Virginia, and died in the same year with Washington. 



WAB INEVITABLE. 61 

trayed with a kiss. Ask yourselves how this gracious recep- 
tion of our petition comports with those warlike preparations 
which cover our waters and darken our land. Are fleets and 
armies necessary to a work of love and reconciliation ? Have 
we shown ourselves so unwilling to be reconciled that force 
must be called in to win back our love ? Let us not deceive 
ourselves, Sir. These are the implements of war and subju- 
gation — the last arguments to which kings resort. 

I ask gentlemen, Sir, what means this martial array, if its 
purpose be not to force us to submission ? Can gentlemen 
assign any other possible motive for it ? Has Great Britain 
any enemy in this quarter of the world, to call for all this 
accumulation of navies and armies ? "No, Sir, she has none. 
They are meant for us; they can be meant for no other. 
They are sent over to bind and rivet upon us those chains 
which the British ministry have been so long forging. And 
what have we to oppose to them ? Shall we try argument ? 
Sir, we have been trying that for the last ten years. Have 
we anything new to ofier upon the subject ? Nothing. We 
have held the subject up in every light of which it is capa- 
ble ; but it has been all in vain. 

Shall we resort to entreaty and humble supplication ? 
What terms shall we find which have not been already ex- 
hausted ? Let us not, I beseech you, Sir, deceive ourselves 
longer. Sir, we have done everything that could be done to 
avert the storm which is now coming on. We have peti- 
tioned — we have remonstrated — we have supplicated — we 
have prostrated ourselves before the throne, and have implor- 
ed its interposition to arrest the tyrannical hands of the min- 
istry and parliament. Our petitions have been slighted; our 
remonstrances have produced additional violence and insult : 
our supplications have been disregarded ; and we have been 
spurned, with contempt, from the foot of the throne. 

In vain, after these things, may we indulge the fond hope 
of peace and reconciliation. There is no longer any room 
for hope. If we wish to be free — if we mean to preserve 
inviolate those inestimable privileges for which we have been 
so long contending — if we mean not basely to abandon the 
noble sti-uggle in which we have been so long engaged, and 
which we have pledged ourselves never to abandon, until the 
glorious object of our contest shall be obtained — we must 
fight ! I repeat it, Sir, we must fight ! ! An appeal to arms, 
and to the God of Hosts, is all that is left us. 

They tell us, Sir, that we are weak — unable to cope with 



62 PATEIOTIC ELOQUENCE. 

SO formidable an adversary. But when shall we be stronger ? 
Will it be the next week, or the next year ? Will it be when 
we are totally disarmed, and when a British guard shall be 
stationed in every house ? Shall we gather strength by irres- 
olution and inaction ? Shall we acquire the means of effect- 
ual resistance by lying supinely on our backs, and hugging 
the delusive phantom of hope, until our enemies shall have 
bound us hand and foot ? Sir, we are not weak if we make 
a proper use of those means which the God of Nature hath 
placed in our power. 

Three millions of people, armed in the holy cause of lib- 
erty, and in such a country as that which we possess, are in- 
vincible by any force which our enemy can send against us. 
Besides, Sir, we shall not fight our battles alone. There is a 
just God, who presides over the destinies of nations, and 
who will raise up friends to fight our battles for us. The 
battle, Sir, is not to the strong alone ; it is to the vigilant, the 
active, the brave. Besides, Sir, we have no election. If we 
were base enough 'to desire it, it is now too late to retire 
from the contest. There is no retreat but in submission and 
slavery! Our chains are forged. Their clanking may be 
heard on the plains of Boston ! The war is inevitable, and 
let it come ! ! I repeat it, Sir, let it come ! ! ! 

It is in vain. Sir, to extenuate the matter. Gentlemen 
may cry peace, peace — but there is no peace. The war is 
actually begun ! The next gale that sweeps from the north 
will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms ! Our 
brethren are already in the field ! Why stand we here idle ? 
What is it that gentlemen wish ? What would they have ? 
Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the 
price of chains and slavery ? Forbid it. Almighty God 1 I 
know not what course others may take ; but as for me, give 
me liberty, or give me death ! 



Ex. XXXVIL—COJUFLICT OF DUTY AND INCLINATION. 

Speech in Parliament, May 18, 1775. 

EARL OF EFFINGHAM.* 

I CONFESS, my lords, that whatever has been done by 
the Americans I must deem the mere consequence of our un- 

* The Earl of Effingham was bred to arms, and from an eager desire to 
become a practical soldier, served as a volunteer in the Russian army, during 



CONFLICT OF DIJTT AKD EN-CLINATION. 63 

just demands. They have come to yon with fair arguments, 
you have refused to hear them ; they make the most respect- 
ful remonstrances, you answer them with pains and penal- 
ties ; they know they ought to be free, you tell them they 
shall be slaves. Is it then a wonder if they say in despair, 
" For the short remainder of our lives we will be free ! " Is 
there one among your lordships who, in a situation similar 
to that which I have described, would not resolve the same ? 
If there could be such a one, I am sure he ought not to be 
here. 

To bring the history down to the present scene. Here 
are two armies in presence of each other ; armies of brothers 
and countrymen ; each dreading the event, yet each feeling 
that it is in the power of the most trifling accident to cause 
the sword to be drawn, and to plunge the whole country 
into all the horrors of blood, flames and parricide. In this 
dreadful moment, a set of men more moderate than the rest 
exert themselves to bring us all to reason. They state their 
claims and their grievances ; nay, if any thing can be proved 
by law and history, they prove it. They propose obliv- 
ion ; they make the first concessions ; we treat them with 
contempt ; we prefer poverty, blood, and servitude, to wealth', 
happiness, and liberty. 

My lords, I should think myself guilty of offering an in- 
sult to your lordships, if I could presume that there is any 
one among you who could think of what was expedient, 
when once it appeared what was just. What weight these 
few observations may have, I do not know ; but the candor 
your lordships have indulged me with, requires a confession 
on my part which may still lessen that weight. I must own I 
am not personally disinterested. Ever since I was of an age 
to have any ambition at all, my highest has been to serve my 
country in a military capacity. If there was on earth an 
event I dreaded, it was to see this country so situated as to 
make that profession incompatible with my duty as a citizen. 

That period is, in my opinion, arrived ; and I have 
thought myself bound to relinquish the hopes I had formed 
by a resignation which appeared to me the only method of 
avoiding the guilt of enslaving my country, and imbruing 

the war with the Porte. The regiment of foot in which he held a captain's 
commission being ordered to America, he resolved, though not possessed of 
an ample patrimony, to resign a darling profession rather than bear arms in a 
cause he did not approve. The cities of London and Dublin voted him their 
thanks for this conduct. 



64 PATEIOTIC ELOQUENCE. 

my hands in the blood of her sons. When the duties of a 
soldier and a citizen become inconsistent, I shall always 
think myself obliged to sink the character of the soldier in 
that of the citizen, till such duties shall again, by the malice 
of our real enemies, become united. It is no small sacrifice 
which a man makes who gives up his profession ; but it is a 
much greatef, when a predilection, strengthened by habit, 
has given him so strong an attachment to his profession as 
I feel. I have, however, this one consolation, that by mak- 
ing that sacrifice, I, at least, give to my country an unequiv- 
ocal proof of the sincerity of my principles. 



Ex. TKKJX.—WAEREJSr'S ADDRESS BEFORE THE BATTLE 
OF BUNKER HILL. 

J. PIERPONT. 

Stand! The ground 's your own, my braves! 
Will ye give it up to slaves ? 
Will ye look for greener graves ? 

Hope ye mercy still ? 
What's the mercy despots feel ? 
Hear it in that battle peal ! 
Read it on yon bristling steel ! 

Ask it, — ye who will. 

Fear ye foes who kill for hire ? 
Will ye to your homes retire ? 
Look behind you ! — they're a-fire ! 

And, before you, see 
Who have done it ! From the vale 
On they come 1 — and will you quail ? 
Leaden rain and iron hail 

Let their welcome be ! 

In the God of battles trust ! 
Die we may, — and die we must : 
But, oh ! where can dust to dust 

Be consigned so well, 
As where heaven its dews shall shed 
On the martyred patriot's bed. 
And the rocks shall raise their head 

Of his deeds to tell. 



EULOGtIUM ON GEIiT. JOSEPH WAKEEN. 65 



Ex. TL.—EULOGIUM ON GEN. JOSEPH WARREN* WHO FELL 
AT THE BATTLE OF BUNKER HILL, JUNE llth, lY'Zo. 

What spectacle more noble than this, of a hero who has 
given his life for the safety of his country ! Approach, cruel 
ministers, and contemplate the fruits of your sanguinary 
edicts. What reparation can you offer to his children for 
the loss of such a father, to the king for that of so good a 
subject, to the country for that of so devoted a citizen ? Send 
hither your satellites ; come, feast your vindictive rage ; the 
most implacable enemy to tyrants is no more. We conjure 
you, respect these his honored remains. Have compassion 
on the fate of a mother overwhelmed with despair and with 
age. Of him, nothing is left that you can still fear. His 
eloquence is mute : his arms are fallen from his hand : then 
lay down yours ; what more have you to perpetrate, barba- 
rians that you are ? But, while the name of American liber- 
ty shall live, that of Warren will fire our breasts, and ani- 
mate our arms, against the pest of standing armies. 

Approach, Senators of America ! Come, and deliberate 
here upon the interests of the United Colonies. Listen to the 
voice of this illustrious citizen ; he entreats, he exhorts, he 
implores you not to disturb his present felicity with the 
doubt that he, perhaps, has sacrificed his life for a people of 
slaves. 

Come hither, ye soldiers, ye champions of American lib- 
erty, and contemplate a spectacle which should inflame your 
generous hearts with even a new motive to glory. Remem- 
ber his shade still hovers, unexpiated, among us. Ten 
thousand ministerial soldiers would not suffice to compensate 
his death. Let ancient ties be no restraint : foes of liberty 

* The name of this early martyr to liberty is invested with a romantic inter- 
est. He was one of those many-sided men whose loss seems to create a separate 
vacancy in each department adorned by them, and whose death is regretted in 
proportion to the versatility of their talents. A successful and skilful physi- 
cian, an eloquent pubHc speaker, a graceful and elegant conversationist, of 
high literary culture and a brave and patriotic spirit, he had but just enHsted 
in the mihtary service of his country when the battle of Bunker Hill cut him 
off in the prime of manhood, at the age of thirty-four. His death was deeply 
felt by the struggling colony, and a year afterward his remains were removed 
from the lowly grave dug on the spot where he fell, and interred with much 
ceremony in Boston. His having been twice selected to deliver the " Fifth 
of March " oration, extracts from which have already been given in this 
volume, shows in what estimation his literary endowments were held by his 
fellow-citizens. 



66 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE. 

are no longer the brethren of freemen. Give edge to your 
arms, and lay them not down till tyranny be expelled from 
the British empire, or America, at least, become the real seat 
of liberty and happiness. 

Approach ye also, American fathers and American moth- 
ers ; come hither, and contemplate the first fruits of tyranny ; 
behold your friend, the defender of your liberty, the honor, 
the hope of your country. See this illustrious hero, pierced 
with wounds, and bathed in his own blood. But let not 
your grief, let not your tears be sterile. Go, hasten to your 
homes, and there teach your children to detest the deeds of 
tyranny ; lay before them the horrid scene you have beheld ; 
let their hair stand on end ; let their eyes sparkle with fire ; 
let resentment kindle every feature ; let their lips vent threats 
and indignation ; then — ^then put arms into their hands, send 
them to battle, and let your last injunction be, to return vic- 
torious, or to die, like Warren, in the arms of liberty and 
glory! 



Ex. TLl.— BUNKER HILL. 

ALFRED B. STREET. 

The eve of a deathless day 

Had gather'd o'er the land, 
And the clear moon cast her silvery ray 

On banner, plume, and brand ; 
Ranks of the bold and free 

Were rallying thickly round, 
With the stern watchword " Liberty ! " 

To drum and trumpet sound. 
The hunter left his deer-trod hill. 
The hamlet's busy voice was still, 
The bark lay idly by the shore. 
The city's hum arose no more ; 
And wild birds in the thicket sung 
Where late the woodman's hatchet rung. 
All came to vSwell the patriot's ranks — 

Men who to man ne'er bow'd the knee : 

Like mountain torrents, wild and free, 
Fierce bursting from their banks. 



BUIfKEE HILL. 67 

Morn breaks. On yon embattled height, 
What form stands towering in the air, 

Holding an aegis broad and bright 
O'er the small band collected there ? 

And whose that banner o'er her streaming, 

In striped and starry blazon gleaming ? 

And whose that eagle at her side, 

With arching neck, and glance of pride ? 

American ! 'tis Freedom's form ! 

Does not thy life-blood kindle warm ? 

And thine that standard waving high, 

And thine that eagle pluming by. 

With blast of trump and roll of drum, 

"Near and more near the foemen come ! 

Think, sire ! thy helpless children throw 

Their arms for succor round thee now ! 

Think, son ! thy age-worn parents feel 

Their fireside hopes are on thy steel ! 

And, most of all, oh, think that ye 

Defend a nation's liberty ! 

Smoke veils the view — but flash on flash, 
And roar on roar,*^and crash on crash, 
And groan and shriek, and shout and yell, 
The progress of the combat tell. 
Fitfully through the lurid haze 
Shoots fierce and red the cannon's blaze, 
And glance, like sparkles on a strean\, 
Grlitter of sword, and bayonet's gleam. 
It lifts — wild scene of rushing files, 
And dropping forms, and thickening piles. 
But, on yon earthen mounds, behold ! 
That starry flag is still unrolled ; 
There side by side the patriots stand, 
The bulwark of their native land. 
In struggling masses — up the hill, 

On the steep glacis, scorch'd and plough' d. 
Beneath the tottering ramparts, still 

The eager hosts. of England crowd. 
Twice had they hurled, with warrior might, 
On Freedo'm's ranks the deadly fight. 
And twice, upon their corpse-strewn track. 
By Freedom's sons been beaten back. 
But see ! they rally now ; the air 



PATEIOTIC ELOQUENCE. 

Gleams with the bayonets bristling there. 

They come ! they come ! Brave hearts ! who stay'd 

That serried torrent undismayed, 

When fiercer in its flow ; 
By all the dearest ties of earth — 
By all the holiest rights of birth, 

Sink not beneath it now. 

Once more ! once more ! ye tried and true, 

Bear up, for Freedom strives with you 1 

Your, banner waves before your eye, 

Your guardian Eagle hovers nigh. 

By every blow a right is freed, 

On every effort's glory's meed ! 

Ha ! Warren falls ! but waver not — 

Pour in your last, your deadliest shot ! 

Now like a lion, death-beset. 

And drenched with blood, unconquer'd yet — 

With bristling mane, and rolling eye. 

Too weak to rush — too proud to fly, 

Scowling more grim, as hasten foes. 

Growling more fierce, as thicken blows, 

Till, with a roar of deep despair. 

He staggers feebly to his lair — 

Grasp, grasp again, ye little band, 

Each weapon with determined hand ! 

Though every limb is faint with toil. 

And every vein has stained the «oil. 

With your clench'd muskets, strike once more ! 

One crushing blow ! — 'tis o'er — 'tis o'er ! — 

And shouting as they slowly flee. 

They leave the humbled king his useless victory. 



Ex. TLIL^DECLARATION OF RIGHTS BY THE CONTINEN- 
TAL CONGRESS. 

July eth, 1775. 

Weee it possible for men who exercise their reason, to be- 
lieve that the Divine Author of our existence intended a part 
of the human race to hold an absolute property in, and un- 



DECLABATION OF EIGHTS. 69 

bounded power over others, — marked out by his infinite good- 
ness and wisdom as the objects of a legal domination never 
rightfully resistible, however severe and oppressive, — the in- 
habitants of these colonies might, at least, require from the 
Parliament of Great Britain some evidence that this dread- 
ful authority over them has been granted to that body. But 
a reverence for our great Creator, principles of humanity, and 
the dictates of common sense, must convince all those who 
reflect upon the subject, that government was instituted to 
promote the welfare of mankind, and ought to be adminis- 
tered for the attainment of that end. 

The Legislature of Great Britain, however, stimulated by 
an inordinate passion for power, and despairing of success in 
any mode of contest where regard should be had to truth, 
law, or right, have at length deserted them all. They have 
attempted to effect their cruel and impolitic purpose of en- 
slaving these colonies by violence, and have therefore ren- 
dered it necessary for us to close with their last appeal from 
reason to arms. Yet, however blinded that Assembly may 
be by their intemperate rage for unlimited domination, so to 
slight justice and the opinion of mankind, we esteem our- 
selves, by obligations of respect to the rest of the world, to 
make known the justice of our cause. 

We are reduced to the alternative of choosing an uncon- 
ditional submission to tyranny, or resistance by force. The 
latter is our choice. We have counted the cost of this con- 
test, and find nothing so dreadful as voluntary slavery. Hon- 
or, justice, and humanity forbid us tamely to surrender that 
freedom which we received from our gallant ancestors, and 
which our innocent posterity has a right to receive fi'om us. 

Our cause is just ; our union is perfect; our internal re- 
sources are great ; and, if necessary, foreign assistance is un- 
doubtedly attainable. 

With hearts fortified, with these animating reflections, we 
most solemnly, before God and the world, declare, that exert- 
ing the utmost energy of those powers which our beneficent 
Creator has graciously bestowed upon us, the arms we have 
been compelled by our enemies to assume, we will, in defiance 
of every hazai*d, employ for the preservation of our liberties, 
being of one mind resolved to die freemen, rather than live 
slaves. 

We fight not for glory, or for conquest, we exhibit to 
mankind the remarkable spectacle of a people attacked by 
unprovoked enemies. They boast of their privileges and 



VO PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE. 

civilization, and yet proffer no milder conditions than servi- 
tude or death. 

In our own native land — ^in defence of the freedom that is 
our birthright, — for the protection of our property against 
violence actually offered — we have taken up arms ; we shall 
lay them down when hostilities shall cease on the part of the 
aggressors, and all danger of their being resumed shall be 
removed — and not before. 



Ex. XLllL—PAELIAMSJSrTAJiY LEVITY REPROVED. 

Speech in Parliament, October 26, 1775. 

EARL OF SHELBURNE. 

It is with equal astonishment and concern, my lords, that 
I perceive not the least mention made in the speech which 
has been this day delivered to us, of a paper, the most im- 
portant of any that could possibly come under the consider- 
ation of this house. I mean the last petition from the gener- 
al congress in America. How comes it that the colonies are 
charged with planning independence in the face of their 
explicit declaration to the contrary, contained in that peti- 
tion ? Is it the intention, by thus perpetually sounding in- 
dependence in the ears of the Americans, to lead them to it, 
or by treating them, upon suspicion, with every possible 
violence, to compel them into that which must be our ruin ? 
For let visionary writers say what they will, it is a plain and 
incontestable fact that the commerce of America is the vital 
stream of this great empire. 

My lords, you have heard two of his majesty's ministers 
acknowledge that they were deceived in their information 
and have erred in their measures respecting America. There 
wants only a similar acknowledgment from a certain law 
lord, who was forward to pledge himself last year for the 
success of their plans. A little blood, indeed, he owned they 
might cost, but with that their efficacy was inevitable. The 
noble lord's political sagacity has for once forsaken him. A 
great deal of blood has been unhappily shed, to no purpose 
but to sever us more, if not to put us asunder forever. 

But is it possible that your lordships should not have 
marked, and marked with indignation, the levity, and even 



EFFECTS OP THE POLICY OF EisTGLAND. 71 

ridicule, with which the noble lord at the head of the ad- 
miralty has treated this most solemn subject ? No man who 
did not feel himself secure in the promise of impunity from 
some quarter, would proclaim his mistakes in triumph, Mad 
sport with the calamities of his country. The noble lord 
laughs at all proposals of reconciliation — repeats his imputa- 
tion of cowardice against the Americans — says the idea of 
rights is to be driven out of their heads by blows, and ridi- 
cules the objections against employing foreigners and papists. 
I appeal to you, my lords, is it decent thus to stigmatize so 
great a part of the empire with so base a calumny ? Is this 
a language becoming so great an officer of state ? 

The inevitable consequence of persevering in these meas- 
ures must be such a depreciation of our estates, that opulence 
will be reduced to competence, and that to indigence. In 
contemplation of this adversity, I feel it a happiness that I 
have been bred a soldier ; accustomed to the moderation of 
that life, my fall from opulence will be easy ; so may it be 
with the rest of your lordships ! But as you would avoid 
this, and still greater calamities, let me beseech you to tem- 
per and restrain with your wisdom the violence of this 
fatal address. 



Ex. TLIY.— EFFECTS OF THE POLICY OF ENGLAND. 

Speech in Parliament, October 26, 1775. 

JOHN WILKES. 

I SPEAK, Sir, as a firm friend of England and America, 
but still more to universal liberty and the rights of all man- 
kind. I trust no part of the subjects of this vast empii-e will 
ever submit to be slaves. I am sure the Americans are too 
high-spirited to brook the idea. Your whole power, and 
that of your allies, if you add any, even of all the German 
troops, of all the ruffians from the north whom you can hire, 
can not effect so wicked a purpose. The conduct of the pres- 
ent administration has already wrested the sceptre of Ameri- 
ca out of the hands of our sovereign, and he has now scarce- 
ly even a postmaster left in that whole northern continent. 
More than half the empire is already lost, and the rest is 
confusion and anarchy. The ministry have brought our 
sovereign into a more disgraceful situation than any crowned 



72 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE. 

head now living. He alone has already lost, by their fatal 
counsels, more territory than the three great united powers 
of Russia, Austria and Prussia have together by a wicked 
CQi^spiracy robbed Poland of, and by equal acts of violence 
and injustice from administration. 

England was never engaged in a contest of such impor- 
tance to our most valuable concerns and possessions. We 
are fighting for the subjection, the unconditional submission, 
of a country infinitely more extended than our own, of which 
every day increases the wealth, the natural strength, the 
population. Should we not succeed, it will be a loss never 
enough to be deplored, a bosom friendship soured to hate 
and resentment. We shall be considered as their most im- 
placable enemies, an eternal separation will follow, and the 
grandeur of the British empire pass away. 

Success, final success, seems to me not equivocal, not un- 
certain, but impossible. However we may differ among our- 
selves, they are perfectly united. On this side the Atlantic, 
party-rage unhappily divides us ; but one soul animates the 
vast northern continent of America, the general congress, 
and each provincial assembly. An appeal has been made to 
the sword ; and at the close of the last campaign, what have 
we conquered ? Bunker's Hill only, and with the loss of 
twelve hundred men. Are we to pay as dearly for the 
rest of America ? The idea of the conquest of that immense 
continent is as romantic as unjust. 

We are told, moreover, that " the Americans have been 
treated with lenity." Will facts justify this assertion? 
Was your Boston Port Bill a measure of lenity ? Was your 
Fishery Bill a measure of lenity ? Was your bill for tak- 
ing away the charter of the Massachusetts Bay, a measure 
of lenity, or even justice ? I omit your many other gross 
provocations and insults, by which the brave Americans 
have been driven into their present state. The honorable 
gentleman asserts that they avow a disposition to be inde- 
pendent. On the contrary. Sir, all the declarations, both 
of the late and the present congress, uniformly tend to this 
one object of being put on the same footing the Americans 
were on in 1 763. This has been their only demand, from which 
they have never varied. Their daily prayers and petitions 
are for peace, liberty and safety. They justly expect to be 
put on an equal footing with the other subjects of the em- 
pire, and are willing to come into any fair agreement with 
you in commercial concerns. If you confine all our trade to 



A SONG. V3 

yourselves, say they ; if you make a monopoly of our com- 
merce ; if you shut all the other ports of the world against 
us, do not tax us likewise. If you tax us, then give us a 
free trade, such as you enjoy yourselves. Let us have equal 
advantages of commerce, all other ports open to us ; then we 
can, and will, cheerfully, voluntarily pay taxes. 

My wish and hope, therefore, is, that an address may be 
presented to the King, praying his Majesty that he would 
sheathe the sword, prevent the lurther effusion of the blood 
of our fellow-subjects, adopt some mode of negotiation with 
the general congress, in compliance with their repeated 
petition, and thereby restore peace and harmony to this 
distracted empire. 



Ex. XLY.—SOJSTG, 17Y6. 

Smile, Massachusetts, smile ! 

Thy virtue still outbraves 
The frowns of Britain's isle. 

And rage of home-born slaves. 
Thy free-born sons disdain their ease 
When purchased by their liberties. 

In Hancock's generous mind 

Awakes the noble strife, 
Which so conspicuous shined 

In gallant Sydney's life. 
While in its cause the hero bled. 
Immortal honors crowned his head. 

Brave Washington arrives 

Arrayed in warlike fame, 
While in his soul revives 

Great Marlb'ro's martial flame, 
To lead your conquering armies on 
To lasting glory and renown. 

To aid the glorious cause 
Experienced Lee has come, 

Renowned in foreign wars, 
A patriot at home. 



4 



74 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE, 

While valiant Putnam's warlike deeds 
Among the foe a terror spreads. 

Stand firm in your defence ; 

Like sons of Freedom fight ; 
Your haughty foes convince 

That you'll maintain your right. 
Defiance bid to tyrant's frown, 
And glory will your valor crown. 



Ex. XLYL— THE DUTIES OF PATRIOTS. 

Speech in the General Assembly of South Carolina, delivered April 11, 1776. 

JOHN RUTLEDGE.* 

Mk. Speaker and Gentlemen of the General Assem- 
bly : A solemn oath has been taken on my part for the faith- 
ful discharge of my duty ; on yours, a solemn assurance has 
been given of your determination to support me therein. 
Thus, a public compact between us stands recorded. You 
may rest assured that I shall keep this oath ever in mind; 
the constitution shall be the invariable rule of my conduct ; 
my ears shall be ever open to the complaint of the injured ; 
justice, in mercy, shall be neither denied nor delayed ; our 
laws and religion, and the hberties of America, shall be main- 
tained and defended to the utmost of my power. I repose 
the most perfect confidence in your engagement. 

And now, gentlemen, let me entreat that you will, in your 
several parishes and districts, use your influence and author- 
ity to keep peace and good order, and procure strict observ- 
ance of, and ready obedience to the law. If any persons 
therein are still strangers to the nature and merits of the dis- 
pute between Great Britain and the colonies, you will ex- 

* Governor Kutledge, one of the most distinguished patriots of South Caro- 
lina, was a native of Ireland, but came to this country at an early age, and identi- 
fied himself with the interests, not only of his adopted state, but of the united 
colonies. At the time of the delivery of this speech, he was president of the 
colony of South Carolina. He must not be confounded with Edward Kutledge, 
a signer of the Declaration of Independence, who was born in Charleston, S. 
C, and also occupies a prominent position in the political history of the last 
century. 



THE DUTIES OP PATEIOTS. 75 

plain it to them fully, and teach them, if they are so unfor- 
tunate as not to know, their inherent rights. Prove to them 
that being tried by a jury of the vicinage, acquainted with 
the parties and witnesses; of being taxed only with their 
own consent, and of having their internal polity regulated 
only by laws framed by competent judges of what is best 
adapted to their situation and circumstances, are inestimable 
privileges, and derived from that constitution which is the 
birthright of the poorest man, and the best inheritance of the 
most wealthy. 

Relate to them the various unjust and cruel statutes 
which the British Parliament, claiming a right to make laws 
for binding the colonies in all cases whatsoever, have enact- 
ed ; and it must appear, even to the most illiterate, that no 
power on earth can rightfully deprive them of the hard- 
earned fruits of their own industry and toil. Show your 
constituents the indispensable necessity which there was for 
establishing some mode of government in these colonies ; the 
benefits of that which a full and free representation has es- 
tablished ; and that the consent of the people is the origin, 
and their happiness the end of government. Remove the 
apprehensions with which honest and well-meaning, but 
weak and credulous minds may be alarmed ; and j^revent false 
impressions by artful and designing enemies. 

Truth, being known, will prevail over artifice and misrep- 
resentation. In such case, no man who is worthy of life, 
liberty, or property, can or will refuse to join with you in 
defending them to the last extremity, disdaining every sor- 
did view and the paltry considerations of private interest 
when placed in competition with the liberties of millions. 
And although superior force may, by the permission of 
Heaven, lay waste our towns and ravage our country, it can 
never eradicate from the breasts of freemen those principles 
which are ingrafted in their very nature. Such men will do 
their duty, neither knowing nor regarding consequences; but 
submittiug them with humble confidence to the omnipotent 
arbiter and director of the fate of empires, and trusting that 
the almighty arm, which has been so signally stretched out 
for our defence, will deliver them in a righteous cause. 



16 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE. 



Ex. TLWl.— FUNERAL ORATION. 

Delivered April, 1776, at the re-interment of tlie remains of Dr. Joseph "Warren, who 
was slam in the battle of Bunker Hiil. 

DR. MORTON. 

Illtjsteious relics! What tidings from the grave? 
"Why have ye left the peaceful mansions of the tomb to visit 
again this troubled earth ? Though thy body has long lain 
undistinguished among the vulgar dead ; though not a 
friendly sigh was uttered o'er thy grave, and though the ex- 
ecration of an impious foe was all thy funeral knell, yet, 
matchless patriot ! thy memory has been embalmed in the 
affections of thy faithful countrymen, who in their hearts 
have raised eternal monuments to thy bravery ! 

We searched in the once bloody field for the murdered 
son of a widow ; and we found him, by the turf and the 
twig, buried on the brow of a hill, though not in a decent 
grave. And though we must again "commit his body to 
the tomb, yet our breasts shall be the burying spot of his 
virtues, and then 

An adamantine monumeni? we'll rear, 
With this inscription — Warren lieth here. 

In public life the sole object of his ambition was to acquire 
the consciousness of virtuous enterprises ; amor patrim was 
the spring of his actions, and mens conscia recti was his 
guide. When the liberties of America were attacked, he ap- 
peared an early champion in the combat ; and although his 
knowledge and abilities would have insured riches and pre- 
ferment, yet he nobly withstood the fascinating charm, 
tossed Fortune back her plume, and j)ursued the inflexible 
purpose of his soul, in guiltless competence. 

When he found that the tools of oppression were obsti- 
nately bent on violence ; when he saw that the British court 
must be glutted with blood ; then he determined that what 
he could not effect by his eloquence or his pen, he would 
bring to purpose by his sword. And on the memorable 19th 
of April he appeared on the field under the united charac- 
ters of the general, the soldier, and the j^hysician. Here he 
was seen animating his countrymen to battle, and fighting by 
their side ; and there he was found administering healing 
comforts to the wounded. And when he had repelled the 
unprovoked assaults of the enemy, and had driven them 



FU^EKAL OEATION. 7Y 

back into their strongholds, like the vii'tuous chief of Rome 
he returned to the Senate, and presided again at the coun- 
cils of the fathers. 

When the vanquished foe had rallied their disordered 
army, and by the acquisition of fresh strength again pre- 
sumed to fight against freemen, our patriot, ever anxious to 
be T^'here he might do the most good, again put off the sena- 
tor, and, in contempt of datiger, flew to the field of battle, 
where after a stern and almost victorious resistance, alas, too 
soon for his country, he sealed his principles with his blood. 
Then "Freedom wept that merit could not save ; " but the im- 
mortal name of Warren shall make forever glorious the field 
on which he fell, and the heights of Charleston bear perpetual 
record of the blood shed in the cause of virtue and mankind. 

And can we, my countrymen, behold with indifference so 
much valor laid prostrate by the hand of British tyranny, 
and can we ever grasp that hand in affection again ? Are 
we not yet convinced that he who hunts the woods for 
prey, the naked and untutored Indian, is less a savage than 
the king of Britain ? Have we not proofs, written in blood, 
that the corrupted nation from whence we sprang is stub- 
bornly fixed on our destruction, and shall we still court de- 
pendence on such a state ? still contend for a connection with 
those who have forfeited not only every kindred claim, but 
even their title to humanity ? Forbid it, spiiit of the brave 
Montgomery ! Forbid it, spirit of the immortal Warren ! 
Rather ought we to disclaim forever the forfeited affinity; 
and by a timely amputation of one limb of the empu'e, save 
the mortification of the whole ! Let us listen to the voice 
of our slaughtered brethren, who are now proclaiming aloud 
to their country : 

• "Go tell the king, and tell him from our spirits, 
That you and Britons can be friends no more ; 
Tell him, to you all tyrants are the same ; 
Or if in bonds the never conquered soul 
Can feel a pang more keen than slavery's self, 
'Tis when the chains that crush you iato dust, 
Are forged by hands from which you hoped for freedom." 

Yes, we will assert the blood 6f our murdered hero against 
thy hostile oppression, O shameless Britain ! and when thy 
" cloud-capped towers, thy gorgeous palaces " shally by the 
teeth of pride and folly be levelled with the ground, and 
when thy glory shall have faded like the western sunbeam, 
the name and the virtues of Waeeen shall remain immortal \ 



78 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE. 



Ex. XI.YUI.— INSTRUCTIONS TO MR, EZRA SARGENT, A DEL- 
EGATE TO THE CONTINENTAL CONGRESS, BY THE 
INHABITANTS OF THE TOWN OF MALDEN, MASS, 

May 27, 1776, 

The time was, Sir, when we loved the king and the peo- 
ple of Great Britain with an affection truly filial; we felt 
ourselves interested in their glory, we shared in their joys 
and sorrows ; we cheerfully poured the fruit of all our labors 
into the lap of our mother country, and without reluctance 
expended our blood and our treasure in her cause. 

These were our sentiments toward Great Britain while 
she continued to act the part of a parent state ; we felt our- 
selves happy in our connection with her, nor wished it to be 
dissolved ; but our sentiments are altered — it is now the ar- 
dent wish of our souls that America may become a free and 
independent state. 

A sense of unprovoked injuries will arouse the resentment 
of the most peaceful. Such injuries these colonies have re- 
ceived from Great Britain. The frantic policy of administra- 
tion hath induced them to send fleets and armies to America, 
that by depriving us of our trade, and cutting the throats of 
our brethren, they might awe us into submission, and erect a 
system of despotism in America, which should so far enlarge 
the influence of the crown as to enable it to rivet their 
shackles upon the people of Great Britain. 

This plan was brought to a crisis upon the ever memora- 
ble nineteenth of April. We remember the fatal day ! The 
expiring groans of our countrymen yet vibrate in our ears, 
and we now behold the flames of their peaceful dwellings 
ascending to heaven ! We hear their blood crying to us from 
the ground for vengeance ! The manner in which the war 
hath been prosecuted, hath confirmed us in ttiese sentiments ; 
piracy and murder, robbery and breach of faith, have been 
conspicuous in the conduct of the king's troops ; defenceless 
towns have been attacked and destroyed; the ruins of 
Charlestown, which are daily in our view, daily remind us 
of this ; the cries of the widow and the orphan demand our 
attention ; they demand that the hand of pity should wipe 
the tear from their eye, and that the sword of the country 
should avenge their wrongs. We long entertained hopes 
that the spirit of the British nation would once more induce 
them to assert their own and our rights, and bring to con- 



A SOKG. 19 

dign punishment the elevated villains who have trampled 
upon the sacred rights of man, and affronted the majesty of 
the people. We hoped in vain ; they have lost their love of 
freedom ; they have lost their spirit of just resentment ; we 
therefore renounce with disdain our connection with a king- 
dom of slaves, and bid a final adieu to Britain. 

We have freely spoken our sentiments upon this impor- 
tant subject, but we mean not to dictate ; we have unbound- 
ed confidence in the wisdom and uprightness of the Conti- 
nental Congress ; with pleasure we recollect that this affair is 
under their direction ; and we now instruct you. Sir, to give 
them the strongest assurance that if they should declare 
America to be a free and independent republic, your constit- 
uents will support and defend the measure, to the last drop 
of their blood, and the last farthing of their treasure. 



Ex. XL1X.—S0]^G. 



The day is broke ; my boys, push on, 
And follow, follow Washington. 
'Tis he that leads the way, my boys, 
'Tis he that leads the way ; 
When he commands we will obey. 
Through rain or sun, by night or day, 
Determined to be free, my boys, 
Determined to be free. 

Kind Providence our troops inspires 
With more than Greek or Roman fires, 
Until our cause prevails, my boys. 
Until our cause prevails. 
Heaven favors, aye, a virtuous few, 
The tyrant's legions to subdue. 
For justice never fails, my boys. 
For justice never fails. 

With heart and hand, and God our trust, 
We'll freely fight — our cause is just. 
Push on, my boys, push on. 

Push on, my boys, push on J 



80 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE. 

Till freedom reigns, our hearty bands 
Will fight like true Americans, 
And follow Washington, my boys, 
And follow Washington. 



Ex. -L.— ASSERTION OF THE RIGHTS OF AMERICA* 

Speech delivered in Congress, June 7, 1776. 

RICHARD HENRY LEE. 

The Americans may become faithful friends to the Eng- 
lish, but subjects, never. And even though union could be 
restored without rancor, it could not without danger. There 
are some who seem to dread the effects of the revolution. 
But will England, or can she manifest against us greater rigor 
and rage than she has already displayed ? She deems resist- 
ance against oppression no less rebellion than independence 
itself. And where are those formidable troops that are to 
subdue the Americans? What the English could not do, 
can it be done by Germans ? Are they more brave, or better 
disciplined ? The number of our enemies is increased ; but 
our own is not diminished, and the battles we have sustained 
have given us the practice of arms and the experience of 
war. 

America has arrived at a degree of power which assigns 
her a place among independent nations ; we are not less en- 
titled to it than the English themselves. If they have wealth, 
so also have we ; if they are brave, so are we ; if they are 
more numerous, our population will soon equal theirs ; if they 

* The occasion of this earnest statement of the nation's position in regard 
to Great Britain, was the introduction into Congress of the following resolu- 
tion, moved by R. H. Lee, of Virginia, and debated with much warmth, six 
states out of thirteen voting against it as premature. 

" Resolved, That the United Colonies are, and ought to be, free and inde- 
pendent States, and that their political connection with Great Britain is, and 
ought to be, dissolvjed." 

The farther consideration of the subject was postponed until the 1st of 
July, and a committee of five appointed to draft a Declaration of Independ- 
ence. On the 4th of July the question came up for final action, the paper 
prepared by Jefferson was accepted, the Declaration was signed by the dele- 
gates from all the colonies, and on that day our country assumed the title of 
*' The United States of America." 



ASSEETION OF THE EIGHTS OF AMERICA. 81 

have men of renown as well in peace as in war, we likewise 
have such; political revolutions produce great, brave, and 
generous spirits. From what we have already achieved in 
these painful beginnings, it is easy to presume what we shall 
hereafter accomplish ; for experience is the source of sage 
counsels, and liberty is the mother of great men. 

Have you not seen the enemy driven from Lexington by 
thirty thousand citizens, armed and assembled in one day ? 
Already their most celebrated generals have yielded, in Bos- 
ton, to the skill of ours ; already their seamen, repulsed from 
our coasts, wander over the sea, where they are the sport of 
tempests, and the prey of famine. Let us hail the favorable 
omen, and fight, not for the sake of knowing on what terms 
we are to be the slaves of England, but to secure ourselves a 
free existence — to found a just and independent government. 
Animated by liberty, the Greeks repulsed the innumerable 
army of Persians ; sustained by the love of independence, 
the Swiss and Dutch humbled the power of Austria and Spain 
by memorable defeats, and conquered a rank among nations. 
The sun of America also shines upon the heads of the brave ; 
the point of our weapons is no less formidable than theirs ; 
here also the same union prevails, the same contempt of dan- 
gers and of death, in asserting the cause of our country. 

Why then do we longer delay — why still deliberate? 
Let this most happy day give birth to the American republic. 
Let her arise, not to devastate and conquer, but to reestab- 
lish the reign of peace and the laws. The eyes of Europe 
are fixed upon us ; she demands of us a living example of 
freedom, that may contrast, by the felicity of the citizens, 
with the ever-increasing tyranny which desolates her polluted 
shores. She invites us to prepare an asylum, where the un- 
happy may find solace, and the persecuted repose. She en- 
treats us to cultivate a propitious soil, where that generous 
plant which first sprung up and grew in England, but is now 
withered by the poisonous blasts of tj^ranny, may revive 
and flourish, sheltering, under its salubrious and interminable 
shade, all the unfortunate of the human race. 

This is the end presaged by so many omens ; by our first 
victories, by the present ardor and union, by the flight of 
Howe and the pestilence which broke out among Dunmore's 
people, by the very winds which baffled the enemy's fleets 
and transports, and that terrible tempest which engulfed 
seven hundred vessels on the coast of [NTewfoundland. If 
we are not this day wanting in our duty to our country, the 
4* 



82 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE. 

names of the American legislators will be placed, by posteri- 
ty, at the side of those of Theseus, of Lycurgus, of Romu- 
lus, of Numa, of the three Williams of Nassau, and of all 
tliose whose memory has been, and will be, forever dear to 
virtuous men and good citizens. 



Ex. lA.— DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE, BY THE UNI- 
TED STATES OF AMERICA IN CONGRESS ASSEMBLED. 



July 4, 1776. 



THOMAS JEFFERSON.* 



When, in the course of human events, it becomes neces- 
sary for one people to dissolve the political bands which 
have connected them with another, and to assume among 
the powers of the earth the separate and equal station to 
which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them, a 
decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they 
should declare the causes which impel them to the separa- 
tion. 

We hold these truths to be self-evident — that all men are 
created equal ; that they are endowed by their Creator with 
certain inalienable rights ; that among these are life, liberty 
and the pursuit of happiness. That, to secure these rights, 
governments are instituted among men, deriving their just 
powers from the consent of the governed ; that when any 
form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is 
the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to insti- 
tute new government, laying its foundation on such prin- 
ciples, and organizing its powers in such form as to them 

* Jefferson took great pride, as well he might, in this production of his 
pen, and in an epitaph written by himself and subsequently placed on his 
tombstone, his titles are " Author of the Declaration of Independence, and of 
the Statutes of Virginia for Keligious Freedom, and Father of the University 
of Virginia." Few men have served their country in more various capacities. 
He was successively member of the provincial legislature of Virginia, delegate 
to the Continental Congress, Envoy to France, Secretary of State, Vice-Presi- 
dent of the United States, and, to close his pubMc life, he filled for eight years 
the office of President — the highest one in the power of the people to bestow. 
He died on the fiftieth anniversary of American Independence, July 4th, 1826, 
within a few hours of John Adams, his predecessor in office and warm per- 
sonal friend. 



DECLAEATIOX OF rXDEPENDENCE. 83 

shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. 
Prudence, indeed, will dictate, that goyernments long estab- 
lished should not be changed for light and transient causes ; 
and, accordingly, all experience hath shown, that mankind 
are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than 
to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they 
are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usur- 
pations, pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design 
to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it 
is their duty to throw off such government, and to provide 
new guards for their future security. Such has been the 
patient sufferance of these colonies ; and such is now the 
necessity which constrains them to alter their former system 
of government. The history of the present King of Great 
Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all 
having in direct object the establishment of an absolute 
tyranny over these states. To prove this, let facts be sub- 
mitted 'to a candid world. 

He has refused his assent to laws the most wholesome 
and necessary for the public good. 

He has forbidden his governors to pass laws of immediate 
and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation 
till his assent should be obtained ; and when so suspended, 
he has utterly neglected to attend to them. 

He has refused to pass other laws for the accommodation 
of large districts of people, unless those peoj^le would relin- 
quish the right of representation in the legislature — a right 
inestimable to them, and formidable to tyra;|its only. 

He has called together legislative bodies, at places un- 
usual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of 
their public records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them 
into compliance with his measures. 

He has dissolved representative houses repeatedly, for op- 
posing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of 
the people. 

He has refased for a long time after such dissolutions, to 
cause others to be elected ; whereby the legislative powers, 
incapable of annihilation, have returned to the people at 
large for their exercise ; the state remaining, in the mean 
time, exposed to all the danger of invasion from without and 
couAiilsions within. 

He has endeavored to prevent the population of these 
states ; for that purpose obstructing the laws for naturaliza- 
tion of foreigners ; refusing to pass others to encourage their 



84 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE. 

migration hither, and raising the conditions of new appro- 
priations of lands. 

He has obstructed the administration of justice, by refus- 
ing his assent to laws for establishing judiciary powers. 

He has made judges dependent on his will alone for the 
tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their 
salaries. 

He has erected a multitude of offices, and sent here 
swarms of officers to harass our people and eat out their 
substance. 

He has kept among us, in times of peace, standing armies 
without the consent of our legislatures. 

He has affected to render the military independent of, 
and superior to the civil power. 

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdic- 
tion foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by 
our laws ; giving his assent to their acts of pretended legis- 
lation : 

For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us : 

For protecting them by a mock trial, from punishment 
for any murder they should commit on the inhabitants of 
these states : 

For cutting off our trade with all parts of the world : 

For imposing taxes on us without our consent : 

For depriving us, in many cases, of the benefits of trial 
by jury : 

For transporting us beyond seas, to be tried for pretend- 
ed offences : 

For abolishing the free system of English law in a neigh- 
boring province, establishing therein an arbitrary govern- 
ment, and enlarging its boundaries so as to render it at 
once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same 
absolute rule in these colonies : 

For taking away our charters, abolishing our most valu- 
able laws, and altering fundamentally the forms of our 
governments : 

For suspending our own legislatures, and declaring them- 
selves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases 
whatsoever. 

He has abdicated government here, by declaring us out 
of his protection and waging war against us. 

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our 
towns, and destroyed the lives of our people. 

He is, at this time, transporting large armies of foreign 



DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. 85 

mercenaries, to complete tlie works of death, desolation and 
tyranny, already begun with circumstances of cruelty and 
perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and 
totally unworthy tht3 head of a civilized nation. 

He has constrained our fellow-citizens, taken captive on 
the high seas, to bear arms against their country, to become 
the executioners of their friends and brethren, or to fall 
themselves by their hands. 

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and 
has endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers 
the merciless Indian savages, whose known rule of warfare 
is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes, and con- 
ditions. 

In every stage of these oppressions, we have petitioned 
for redress in the most humble terms ; our petitions have 
been answered only by repeated injury. A prince whose 
character is thus marked by every act which may define a 
tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people. 

Nov have we been wanting in attention to our British 
brethren. We have warned them, from time to time, of 
attempts made by their legislature to extend an unwarrant- 
able jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the 
circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We 
have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and 
we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred, to 
disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt 
our connexions and correspondence. They, too, have been 
deaf to the voice of justice and consanguinity. We must, 
therefore, acquiesce in the necessity which denounces our 
separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of man- 
kind, enemies in war — in peace, friends. 

We, therefore, the representatives of the United States 
of America, in general Congress assembled, appealing to 
the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our 
intentions, do, in the name and by the authority of the good 
people of these colonies, solemnly publish and declare, that 
these united colonies are, and of right ought to be, free 
and independent states ; that they are absolved from all al- 
legiance to the British crown, and that all political con- 
nexion between them and the State of Great Britain, is 
and ought to be totally dissolved ; and that as free and inde- 
pendent states, they have full power to levy war, conclude 
peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and do all 
other acts and things which independent states may of right 



86 PATEIOTIC ELOQTJEH^CE. 

do. And for the support of this declaration, with a firm 
reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually 
pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred 
honor. 



Ex. Ul.— SUPPOSED SPEECH OF JOHN ADAMS, IN FA VOR 
OF THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE."^ 

DANIEL WEBSTER. 

Sink or swim, live or die, survive or perish, I give my 
hand and my heart to this vote. It is true, indeed, that in 
the beginning we aimed not at independence. But " there's 
a Divinity which shapes our ends." The injustice of Eng- 
land has driven us to arms ; and, blinded to her own interest 
for our good, she has obstinately persisted, till independence 
is now within our grasp. We have but to reach forth to it, 
and it is ours. Why, then, should we defer the declaration ? 
Is any man so weak as now to hope for a reconciliation with 
England, which shall leave either safety to the country and 
its liberties, or safety to his own life, and his own honor ? 
Are not you. Sir, who sit in that chair ; is not he, our venera- 
ble colleague near you, are you not both already the pro- 
scribed and predestined objects of punishment and of ven- 
geance ? Cut off from all hope of royal clemency, what are 
you, what can you be, while the power of England remains, 
but outlaws ? If we postpone independence, do we mean 
to carry on, or to give up the war? Do we mean to 
submit to the measures of Parliament, Boston Port Bill and 
all ? Do we mean to submit and consent that we, ourselves, 
shall be ground to powder, and our country and rights trod- 
den down in the dust ? I know we do not mean to submit. 
We never shall submit. Do we intend to violate that most 

* This splendid specimen of eloquence, like the "Supposed Speech of 
James Otis," has become so familiar to young readers and speakers in its pres- 
ent form, that it is mistaken by many of them for the production of the emi- 
nent statesman whose name is identified with it. It was in fact, however, ut- 
tered by Daniel Webster, in a discourse commemorative of Adams and Jef- 
ferson, delivered August 2d, 1826, shortly after the death of these great men. 
He begins by supposing John Adams to have risen in his seat to speak on the 
subject of the " Declaration," and judging by his well-known spirit what would 
have been the tenor of his remarks on such an occasion, frames for him a 
speech which Adams, had he heard it, would not have been ashamed to own. 



SUPPOSED SPEECH OF JOHIf ADAMS. 87 

solemn obligation ever entered into by men, that plighting, 
before God, of our sacred honor to Washington, when, put- 
ting him forth to incur the dangers of war, as well as the 
political hazards of the times, we promised to adhere to him, 
in every extremity, with our fortunes and our lives ? I know 
there is not a man here who would not rather see a general 
conflagration sweep over the land, or an earthquake sink it, 
than one jot or tittle of that plighted faith fall to the ground. 
For myself, having, twelve months ago, in this place, moved 
you that George Washington be appointed commander of the 
forces raised, or to be raised, in defence of American liberty, 
may my right arm forget her cunning, and my tongue cleave 
to the roof of my mouth, if I hesitate or waver in the sup- 
port I give him. 

The war, then, must go on. We must fight it through. 
And if the war must go on, why put off longer the Dec- 
laration of independence ? That measure will strengthen 
us. It will give us character abroad. The nations will 
then treat with us, which they can never do while we ac- 
knowledge ourselves subjects, in arms against our sovereign. 
Nay, I maintain that England herself will sooner treat for 
peace with us on the footing of independence, than consent, 
by repealing her acts, to acknowledge that her whole con- 
duct towards us has been a course of injustice and oppres- 
sion. Her pride will be less wounded by submitting to 
that course of things which now predestinates our independ- 
ence, than by yielding the points in controversy to her re- 
bellious subjects. The former she would regard as the re- 
sult of fortune, the latter she would feel as her own deep 
disgrace. Why then, why then. Sir, do we not as soon as 
possible change this from a civil to a national war ? And 
since we must fight it through, why not put ourselves in a 
state to enjoy all the benefits of victory, if we gain the 
victory ? 

If we fail, it can be no worse for us. But we shall not 
fail. The cause will raise up armies, the cause will create 
navies. The people, the people, if we are true tO 'them, will 
carry us, and will carry themselves, gloriously through this 
struggle. I care not how fickle other people have been 
found. I know the people of these colonies, and I know 
that resistance to British oppression is deep and settled in 
their hearts, and can not be eradicated. Every colony, in- 
deed, has expressed its willingness to follow, if we take the 
lead. 



88 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE. 

Sir, the Declaration will inspire the people with in- 
creased courage. Instead of a long and bloody war, for the 
restoration of privileges, for redress of grievances, for char- 
tered immunities, held under a British king, set before them 
the glorious object of entire independence, and it will breathe 
into them anew the breath of life. Read this Declaration at 
tbe head of the army ; every sword will be drawn from 
its scabbard, and the solemn vow uttered, to maintain it, 
or to perish on the bed of honor. Publish it from the pul- 
pit ; religion will approve it, and the love of religious lib- 
erty will cling round it, resolved to stand with it, or fall 
with it. Send it to the public halls, proclaim it there ; let 
them hear it who heard the first roar of the enemy's can- 
non ; let them see it who saw their brothers and their sons 
fall on the field of Bunker Hill, and in the streets of Lex- 
ington and Concord, and the very walls will cry out in its 
support. 

Sir, I know the uncertainty of human affairs, but I see, 
I see clearly, through this day's business. You and I, in- 
deed, may rue it. We may not live to the time when this 
Declaration shall be made good. We may die ; die colo- 
nists ; die slaves ; die, it may be, ignominiously and on the 
scaffold. Be it so. Be it so. If it be the pleasure of Heav- 
en that my country shall require the poor offering of my 
life, the victim shall be ready, at the appointed hour of sac- 
rifice, come when that hour may. But while I do live, let 
me have a country, or at least the hope of a country, and 
that a free country. 

But whatever may be our fate, be assured, be assured 
that this Declaration will stand. It may cost treasure, and 
it may cost blood ; but it will stand, and it will nobly com- 
pensate for both. Through the thick gloom of the present, 
I see the brightness of the future, as the sun in Heaven. 
We shall make this a glorious, an immortal day. When 
we are in our graves, our children will honor it. They will 
celebrate it with thanksgiving, w^ith festivity, with bonfires 
and illuminations. On its annual return they will shed 
tears, copious, gushing tears, not of subjection and slavery, 
not of agony and distress, but of exultation, of gratitude, 
and of joy. Sir, before God, I believe that the hour is come. 
My judgment approves this measure, and my whole heart is 
in it. All that I have, and all that I hope, in this life, I am 
now ready here to stake upon it ; and I leave off" as I began, 
that, live or die, survive or perish, I am for the Declaration. 



WAE AND WASHINGTOIT. " 89 

It is my living sentiment, and by the blessing of God il 
shall be my dying sentiment, Independence now^ and Inde- 
pendence rOKEVEE ! 



Ex. Lin.— TT^i? AJSri) WASHINGTON. 

JONATHAN MITCHEL SEWALL. 

Vain Britons, boast no longer with proud indignity, 

By land your conquering legions, your matchless strength 
at sea ; 

Since we, your braver sons, incensed, our swords have gird- 
ed on, 

Hurra, hurra, hurra, hurra, for war and Washington. 

Your dark, unfathomed counsels our weakest heads defeat, 
Our children rout your armies, our boats destroy your fleet, 
And to complete the dire disgrace, cooped up within a town, 
You live, the scorn of all our host, the slaves of Washington. 

Great heaven ! is this the nation whose thundering arms were 

hurled 
Through Europe, Afric, India? whose navy ruled the 

world ! 
The lustre of your former deeds, whole ages of renown. 
Lost in a moment, or transferred ta- us and Washington. 

Yet think not thirst of glory unsheathes our vengeful swords 

To rend your bands asunder, and cast away your cords ; 

'Tis heaven-born freedom fires us all, and strengthens each 
brave son. 

From him who humbly guides the plough, to god-like Wash- 
ington. 

For this, oh could our wishes your ancient rage inspii*e. 
Your armies should be doubled, in numbers, force, and fire, 
Then might the glorious conflict prove which best deserved 

the boon, 
America or Albion ; a George, or Washington ! 

Fired with the great idea, our fathers' shades would rise ; 
To view the stern contention the gods desert their skies. 



90 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE. 

And Wolfe, 'mid hosts of heroes, superior bending down, 
Cry out with eager transports^ God save great Washington ! 

Should George, too choice of Britons, to foreign realms 

apply 
And madly arm half Europe, yet still we would defy 
Turk, Hessian, Jew, and Infidel, or all these powers in one, 
While Adams guides our Senate, our camp great Washington ! 

Should warlike weapons fail us, disdaining slavish fears. 

To swords we'll beat our ploughshares, our pruning-hooks to 
spears. 

And rush all desperate on our foe, nor breathe till battle's 
won ; 

Then shout, and shout America! and conquering Wash- 
ington. 

Proud France should view with terror, and haughty Spain 

revere. 
While every warlike nation would court alliance here, 
And George, his minions trembling round, dismounting from 

his throne. 
Pay homage to America, and glorious Washington. 



■KK.UV.—ADDBESS TO :JPHE AMERICAN TROOPS BEFORE 
THE BATTLE OF LONG ISLAND, AUGUST 2lth, miQ. 



GEN. "WASHINGTON. 



The time is now near at hand which must probably de- 
termine whether Americans are to be freemen or slaves; 
whether they are to have any property they can call their 
own ; whether their houses and farms are to be pillaged and 
destroyed, and themselves consigned to a state of wretched- 
ness from which no human efforts will deliver them. The 
fate of unborn millions will now depend, under God, on the 
courage and conduct of this army. Our cruel and unrelent- 
ing enemy leaves us only the choice of a brave resistance, or 
the most abject submission. We have, therefore, to resolve 
to conquer or to die. 

Our own, our country's honor, calls upon us for a vigor- 



CHASGE TO THE GEAXD JUEY OF SOUTH CAEOLLS-A. 91 

ons and manly exertion ; and if we now shamefiillY fail, we 
shall become infamous before the whole world. Let us, then, 
rely on the goodness of our cause, and the aid of the Supreme 
Being, in whose hands victory is, to animate and encourage 
us to great and noble actions. The eyes of all our coimtry- 
men are now upon us ; and we shall have their blessings and 
praises, if happily we are the instruments of saving them 
li-om the tyranny meditated against them. Let us, therefore, 
animate and encourage each other, and show the whole world 
that a freeman contending for liberty on his own ground, is 
superior to any sla^'ish mercenary on earth. 

Liberty, property, life, and honor are all at stake. Upon 
your courage and conduct rest the hopes of our bleeding and 
insulted country. Our wives, children, and parents, expect 
safety from us only ; and they have every reason to believe 
that heaven will crown with success so just a cause. The 
enemy will endeavor to intimidate us by show and appear- 
ance ; but remember they have been repulsed on various oc- 
casions by a few brave Americans. Their cause is bad — their 
men are conscious of it ; and, if opposed with firmness and 
coolness on their first onset, with our advantage of works 
and knowledge of the ground, the victor^' is most assuredly 
ours. Every good soldier will be silent and attentive, wait 
for orders and reserve his fire until lie is sure of doing exe- 
cution. 



Ex IX. -^CHARGE TO THE GRAXI) JURY OF SOUTH 
OAROUXA. 

OctoT)er 15th, 177a 

JTDGE DRAYTON, 

A DECEEE is now gone forth, not to be recalled I And 
thus has suddenly arisen in the world a new empire, styled 
the United States of America. An empire, that as soon as 
started into existence, attracts the attention of the rest of the 
universe, and bids fair, by the blessing of God, to be the 
most glorious of any upon record. America hails Europe, 
Asia, and Africa ! She proffers peace and plenty. 

When, in modern times, Philip of Spain became the ty- 
rant of the Low Countries in Europe, of seventeen provinces 



92 PATEIOTIC ELOQUENCE. 

whicli composed those territories, seven only effectually con- 
federated to preserve their liberties, or to perish in the at- 
tempt. They saw Philip the most' powerful prince in the 
Old World, and master of Mexico and Peru in the New — 
nations incessantly pouring into his territoiies floods of gold 
and silver. They saw him possessed of the best troops and 
the most formidable navy in the universe, and aiming at no 
less than univer&al monarchy. But these seven provinces, 
making but a speck upon the globe, saw themselves without 
armies, fleets, or funds of money — yet nobly relying upon 
Providence and the justice of their cause, they resolved to 
oppose the tyrant's whole force, and at least deserve to be 
free. They fought, they b^sd, and were often brought to the 
door of destruction. But they redoubled their efforts in pro- 
portion to their danger. And the inhabitants of that sj^eck 
of earth compelled the master of dominions so extensive that 
it was boasted the sun was never absent from them, to treat 
them as a free and independent people ! 

For a moment, and with the aid of a fearful imagination, 
let us suppose that the American States are now as defence- 
less as the Hollanders then were ; and that the king of Great 
Britain is now as powerful as Philip then was. Yet even 
such a state of things could not be a plea for any degree of 
submission on our part. Did not the Hollanders oppose their 
weakness to the strength of Spain ? Are not the Americans 
engaged in as good a cause as the Hollanders fought in ? 
Are the Americans less in love with liberty than the Hol- 
landers were ? Shall we not in this, a similar cause, dare 
those perils that they successfully combated ? Shall we not 
deserve freedom ? Our past actions presage our future 
achievements, and animate us in our military efforts for 
peace, liberty and safety. 

America is possessed of resources for the war, which ap- 
pear as soon as inquired after ; are found only by being sought 
for ; and are but scarce imagined even when found. Strong 
in her union, on each coast and frontier she meets the inva- 
ders, whether British or Indian savages, repelling their allied 
attacks. The Americans can live without luxury. They en- 
gage in the war from principle. They follow their leaders to 
battle with personal affection. Natives of the climate, they 
bear the vicissitudes and extremities of the weather. Hardy 
and robust, they need no camp equipage, and they march 
with celerity. From such a people, everything is to be hoped 
for, nothing is to be doubted of. Such a people, though 



SONG OF maeion's me:n". 93 

youag in the practice of war, were ever superior to veteran 
troops — and if the conduct of America is worthy of herself, 
I see no cause to fear the enemy. However, in such a con- 
flict,, we ought to expect difficulties, dangers and defeats. 
Let us remember, that it was to the danger in which the 
Roman state was reared, that she owed her illustrious men 
and imperial fortune. The Roman dignity was never so 
majestic, her glory never so resplendent, her fortitude and 
exertions never so conspicuous and nervous, as when, Hanni- 
bal, in the successive battles of Trabia, Thrasymenus and 
Caunge, having almost extirpated their whole military force, 
the very state was on the brink of dissolution. The Romans 
deserved^ and they aoquired victory ! 



Ex. \N\.—SONa OF MARION'S MEN* 

WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT. 

Our band is few, but true and tried, 

Our leader frank and bold ; 
The British soldier trembles 

When Marion's name is told. 
Our fortress is the good greenwood, 

Our tent the cypress tree ; 
We know the forest round us, 

As seamen know the sea. 
We know its walls of thorny vines, 

Its glades of reedy grass, 
Its safe and silent islands . 

Within the dark morass. 

Woe to the English soldiery 
That little dread us near ! 

* Francis Marion, a general in the Revolutionary war, was no less distin- 
guished by his personal valor and the extraordinary influence he acquired over 
the soldiers under his command, than by his skill in conducting military ope- 
rations. He had, Hke Washington, served in the French and Indian war, and 
brought into the war of Independence the experience gained in his previous 
service. He was what would be called at the present day a "raider," and 
the attachment between himself and his soldiers was of a closer and more 
personal nature than that which is formed under the ordinary routine of mili- 
tary discipline. The marshy country between the Pedee and Santee rivers, in 
South Carolina, was the scene of his principal operations. 



94 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE. 

On t^em shall light at midnight 

A strange and sudden fear : 
"When waking to their tents on fire 

They grasp their arms in vain, 
And they who stand to face us 

Are beat to earth again. 
And they who fly in terror, deem 

A mighty host behind, 
And hear the tramp of thousands 

Upon the hollow wind. 

Then sweet the hour that brings release 

From danger and from toil ; 
We talk the battle over. 

And share the battle's spoil. 
The woodland rings with laugh and shout, 

As if a hunt were up. 
And woodland flowers are gathered 

To crown the soldier's cup. 
With merry songs we mock the wind 

That in the pine-top grieves, 
And slumber long and sweetly 

On beds of oaken leaves. 

Well knows the fair and friendly moon 

The band that Marion leads — 
The glitter of their rifles. 

The scamper of their steeds. 
'Tis life to guide the fiery barb 

Across the moonlight plain ; 
'Tis life to feel the night- wind 

That lifts his tossing mane. 
A moment in the British camp — 

A moment — and away ! 
Back to the pathless forest 

Before the peep of day. 

Grave men there are by broad Santee, 
Grave men with hoary hairs. 

Their hearts are all with Marion, 
For Marion are their prayers. 

And lovely ladies greet our band 
With kindest welcoming. 



EXPOSTULATION WITH PARLIAMENT. 96 

With smiles like those of summer, 

And tears like those of spring. 
For them we wear these trusty arms, 

And lay them down no more, 
Till we have driven the Briton 

Forever from our shore. 



Ex. INll.— EXPOSTULATION WITH PARLIAMENT, 
Speecli in Parliament, April 3, 1777. 

EDMUND BURKE. 

I THINK I know America. If I do not, my ignorance is 
incurable, for I have spared no pains to understand it ; and 
I feel most solemnly assured that everything that has been 
done there has arisen from a total misconception of the ob- 
ject : that our means of originally holding America, of rec- 
onciling with it after quarrel, of recovering it after separa- 
tion, of keeping it after victory, did depend, and must de- 
pend upon a total renunciation of that unconditional submis- 
sion which has taken such possession of the minds of violent 
men. Nothing, indeed, can place us in our former situation. 
That hope must be laid aside. But there is a difference be- 
tween bad and the worst of all. 

If I had not lived long enough to be little surprised at 
anything, I should have been in some degree astonished at 
the continued rage of several gentlemen, who, not satisfied 
with carrying fire and sword into America, are animated 
with nearly the same fury against those neighbors of theirs, 
whose only crime it is that they have charitably and humane- 
ly wished them to entertain more reasonable sentiments, and 
not always to sacrifice their interest to their passion. 

All this rage against unresisting dissent convinces me, 
that at bottom, they are far from satisfied that they are in 
the right. For what is it they would have ? A war ? They 
certainly have at this moment the blessing of something that 
is very like one ; and if the war they enjoy at present be not 
sufiiciently hot and extensive, they may shortly have it as 
warm and as spreading as their hearts can desire. Is it the 
force of the kingdom they call for ? They have it already ; 
and if they choose to fight their battles in their own person, 



96 PATEIOnC ELOQUENCE. 

ndbody prevents their setting sail to America in the next 
transport. Do they think that the service is stinted for want 
of liberal supplies ? Indeed, they complain without reason. 
The table of the House of Commons will glut them, let their 
appetite for expense be never so keen. And I assure them 
further, that those who think with them in the House of Com- 
mons are full as easy in the control, as they are liberal in the 
vote of these expenses. If this be not supply or confidence 
sufficient, let them open their own private purse strings and 
give, from what is left to them, as largely and with as little 
care as they think proper. 

I am charged with being an American. If warm affection 
towards those over whom I claim any share of authority, be 
a crime, I am guilty of this charge. But I do assure you 
(and they who know me publicly and privately will bear 
witness to me), that if ever one man lived, more zealous than 
another for the supremacy of parliament, it was myself. But 
in the comprehensive dominion which Divine Providence has* 
put into our hands, it is our duty, in all soberness, to conform 
our government to the character and circumstances of the 
several peoples who compose this mighty and strangely di- 
versified mass. If there be one fact in the world perfectly 
clear, it is this : " That the disposition of the people of 
America is wholly averse to any other than a free govern- 
ment ; " and this is indication enough, to any honest states- 
man, how he ought to adapt any power he finds in his hands, 
to their case. If any ask me what a free government is, I 
answer that, for any practical purpose it is what the people 
think so ; and that they, and not I, are the natural, lawful 
and competent judges of this matter. K they practically 
allow me a greater degree of authority over them than is 
consistent with any correct ideas of perfect freedom, I ought 
to thank them for so great a trust and not to endeavor to 
prove from thence, that they have reasoned amiss, and that 
having gone so far, by analogy, they must hereafter have no 
enjoyment but by my pleasure. 

It is impossible that a nation should remain long in a 
situation which breeds such notions and dispositions, with- 
out some great alteration in the national character. Many 
things have been long operating towards a gradual change 
in our principles, but this American war has done more in a 
very few years than all the other causes could have effected 
in a century. It is not, therefore, on its own separate ac- 
count, but because of its attendant circumstances, that I con- 



PROCLAMATION. 97 

sider its contimiance, or its ending in any way but that of 
an honorable and liberal accommodation, as the greatest evils 
that can befall us. For that reason I entreat yon again and 
again, neither to be persuaded, shamed, or frighted, out of 
the principles that have hitherto led so many of you to ab- 
hor the war, its cause, and its consequences. Let us not be 
amongst the first who renounce the maxims of our fore- 
fa4ihers. 



Ex. INm..— PROCLAMATION* 

By John Burgoyne, esqtiire, Lieutenant General of His Majesty's armies in North 
America, Colonel of the Queen's regiment of light dragoons, GoTemor of Fort "William 
in North Britain, one of the representatires of the Commons of Great Britaia, and com- 
manding an army and fleet employed on an expedition from Canada, &c., &c., &c. 
Given at the Camp at Ticonderoga, July 2, 1777. 

The forces intrusted to my command are designed to 
act in concert, and upon a common principle, with the numer- 
ous armies and fleets which already display in every quarter 
of America the power, the justice, and when properly sought, 
the mercy of the king. 

The cause in which the British arms are thus exerted ap- 
peals to the most affecting interests of the human heart; 
and the military servants of the crown, at first called forth 
for the sole purpose of restoring the rights of the constitu- 
tion, now combine with the love of their country and duty 
to their sovereign, the other extensive incitements which 
form a due sense of the general privileges of mankind. To 
the eyes and ears of the temperate part of the public, and 
the breasts of suffering thousands in the provinces, be the 
melancholy appeal whether the present unnatural rebellion 
has not been made a foundation for the completest system 
of tyranny that ever God, in his displeasure, suffered to be 
exercised over a froward and stubborn generation. 

Arbitrary imprisonment, confiscation of property, perse- 
cution and torture, unprecedented in the Inquisition of the 

* The arrogant style of this proclamation is in ludicrous contrast with the 
fact that in httle more than three months from the time it was issued, Bur- 
goyne and his whole army surrendered to the American forces. It is not 
perhaps generally known that this unlucky general had better success in the 
field of Uterature than in that of arms, hayhag ended his Hfe as a popular 
dramatic author. 



98 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE. 

Romisli church, are among the palpable enormities that veri- 
fy the affirmation. These are inflicted by assemblies and 
committees, who dare to profess themselves friends to liber- 
ty, upon the most quiet subjects, without distinction of age 
or sex, for the sole crime, often for the sole suspicion, of hav- 
ing adhered in principle to the government under which they 
were born, and to which, by every tie, divine and human, 
they owe allegiance. To consummate these shocking pro- 
ceedings, the profanation of religion is added to the most 
profligate prostitution of common reason ; the consciences, 
of men are set at nought, and multitudes are compelled not 
only to bear arms, but also to swear subjection to an usur- 
pation they abhor. 

Animated by these considerations — at the head of troops 
in the full powers of health, discipline and valor — determined 
to strike where necessary, and anxious to spare where pos- 
sible — I, by these presents, invite and exhort all persons, in 
all places where the progress of this army may point — and 
by the blessing of God I will extend it far — to maintain such 
a conduct as may justify me in protecting their lands, habi- 
tations and families. The intention of this address is to hold 
forth security, not depredation, to the country. To those 
whom spirit and principle may induce to partake the glori- 
ous task of redeeming their countrymen from dungeons, and 
reestablishing the blessings of legal government, I offer en- 
couragement and employment ; and upon the first intelli- 
gence of their associations, I will find means to assist their 
undertakings. The domestic, the industrious, the infirm, and 
even the timid, I am desirous to protect, provided they re- 
main quietly at their houses ; that they do not suffer their 
cattle to be removed, nor their corn or forage to be secreted 
or destroyed ; that they do not break up their bridges or 
roads ; nor by any other act, directly or indirectly, endeavor 
to obstruct the operations of the king's troops, or supply 
or assist those of the enemy. 

Every species of provision brought to my camp will be 
paid for at an equitable r^e, and in solid coin. 

In consciousness of Cnristianity, my royal master's clem- 
ency, and the honor of soldiership, I have dwelt upon this 
invitation, and wished for more persuasive terms to give it 
impression. And let not people be led to disregard it, by 
considering their distance from the immediate situation of 
my camp. I have but to give stretch to the Indian forces 
under my direction — and they amount to thousands — to 



99 

overtake the hardened enemies of Great Britain and America. 
I consider them the same, wherever they may lurk. 

If, notwithstanding these endeavors and sincere inclina- 
tion to effect them, the phrenzy of hostility should remain, I 
trust I shall stand acquitted in the eyes of God and men in 
denouncing and executing the vengeance of the state against 
these wilful outcasts. The messengers of justice and of 
wrath await them in the field ; and devastation, famine and 
every concomitant horror, that a reluctant, but indispensable 
prosecution of military duty must occasion, will bar the way 
to their return. 



Ex.LIK.—AIiSWBE TO BURGOYNWS PROCLAMATION 

Saratoga, July 10, 1777. 

Most high, most mighty, most puissant and sublime 
General : 

When the forces under your command arrived at Quebec 
in order to act in concert -and upon a common principle with 
the numerous fleets and armies which already display in 
every quarter of America the justice and mercy of your king, 
we, the reptiles of America, were struck with unusual trepi- 
dation and astonishment. But what words can express the 
plenitude of our horror, when the colonel of the queen's regi- 
ment of light dragoons advanced towards Ticonderoga ? The 
mountains shook before thee, and the trees of the forest 
bowed their lofty heads — the vast lakes of the north were 
chilled at thy presence, and the mighty cataracts stopped 
their tremendous career, and were suspended in awe at thy 
approach. Judge, then, O ineffable governor of Fort Wil- 
liam in I^orth Britain ! what must have been the terror, dis- 
may and despair that overspread this paltry continent of 
North America, and us, its wretched inhabitants. Dark and 
dreary indeed was the prospect before us, till, like the sun 
in the horizon, your most gracious, sublime and irresistible 
proclamation opened the doors of mercy and snatched us, as 
it were, from the jaws of annihilation. 

We foolishly thought, blind as we were, that your gra- 
cious master's fleets and armies were come to destroy us and 
our liberties, but we are happy in hearing from you (and 



100 PATEIOTIC ELaQUENCE. 

who can doubt what you assert ?) that they were called forth 
for the sole purpose of restoring the rights of the constitution 
to a froward and stubborn generation. 

And is it for this, O sublime lieutenant-general ! that you 
have given yourself the trouble to cross the wide Atlantic, 
and with incredible fatigue traverse uncultivated wilds ? 
And we ungratefully refuse the proffered blessing ? To re- 
store the rights of the constitution, you have called together 
an amiable host of savages, and turned them loose to scalp 
our women and children and lay our country waste — ^this 
they have performed with their usual skill and clemency, 
and yet we remain insensible to the benefit, and unthankful 
for so much goodness. 

Our Congress have declared independence, and our assem- 
blies, as your highness justly observes, have most wi^^kedly 
imprisoned the avowed friends of that power with which 
they are at war, and most profanely compelled those whose 
consciences will not allow them to fight, to pay some small 
part of the expenses their country is at, in supporting what 
is called a necessary defensive war. If we go on thus in 
our obstinacy and ingratitude, what can we expect but that 
you should, in your anger, give a stretch to the Indian forces 
under your direction amounting to thousands, tp overtake 
and destroy us ? Or, which is ten times worse, that you 
should withdraw your fleets and armies, and leave us to our 
own misery, without completing the benevolent task you 
have begun of restoring to us the rights of the constitution. 

We submit, we submit, most puissant ' colonel of the 
queen's regiment of light dragoons, and governor of Fort 
William in ISTorth Britain ! We offer our heads to the 
scalping-knife, and our bodies to the bayonet. Who can 
resist the force of your eloquence ? Who can withstand the 
terror of your arms ? The invitation you have made, in the 
consciousness of Christianity, your royal master's clemency, 
and the honor of soldiership, we thankfully accept. The 
blood of the slain, the cries of injured virgins and innocent 
children, and the never-ceasing sighs and groans of starving 
wretches, now languishing in the jails and prison-ships of 
New York, call on us in vain, while your sublime proclama- 
tion is sounded in our ears. Forgive us, O our country ! 
Forgive us, dear posterity ! Forgive us, all ye foreign pow- 
ers, who are anxiously watching our conduct in this impor- 
tant struggle, if we yield implicitly to the persuasive tongue 



A CAMP BALLAD. 101 

of the most elegant colonel of her«najesty's regiment of light 
dragoons. 

Forbear then, thou magnanimous lieutenant-general! 
Forbear to denounce vengeance against us — forbear to give 
a stretch to those restorers of constitutional rights, the Indian 
forces under your direction; let not the messengers of justice 
and Tvrath await us in the field ; and devastation, and every 
concomitant horror, bar our return to the allegiance of a 
prince who, by his royal will, would deprive us of every 
blessing of life, with all possible clemency. 

We are domestic, we are industrious, we are infirm and 
timid, we shall remain quietly at home, and not remove our 
cattle, our corn, or forage, in hopes that you will come, at 
the head of troops in the full powers of health, discipline 
and valor, and take charge of them for yourselves. Behold 
our wives and daughters, our flocks and herds, our goods 
and chattels, are they not at the mercy of our lord the king, 
and of his lieutenant-general, member of the House of Com- 
mons, and governor of Fort William in [N'orth Britain ? 



Ex. LX.— ^ CAMP BALLAD. 

FRANCIS HOPKINSON.* 

Make room, oh ye kingdoms ! in history renowned, 
Whose arms have in battle with glory been crowned ; 
Make room, — for America, another great nation. 
Arises to claim in your council a station. 

Her sons fought for freedom, and by their own bravery 
Have rescued themselves from the shackles of slavery. 
America's free, and though Britain abhorred it, 
Yet Fame a new volume prepares to record it. 

Fair Freedom in Britain her home had erected. 
But her sons growing venal, and she not respected, 

■* Judge Hopkinson was a member of the Continental Congress, and 
signed the Declaration of Independence. He did great service to this coun- 
try by his pen during the War for Freedom, and left, besides political essays, 
satires, &c., many songs, very popular in their day, some of them set to 
music by himself. 



102 PATEIOTIC ELOQUENCE. 

The goddess offended forsook the base nation, 
And fixed on our mountains a more honored station. 

With glory immortal she here sits enthroned, 
Nor fears the vain vengeance of Britain disowned ; 
Whilst Washington guards her with heroes surrounded, 
Her foes shall with shameful defeat be confounded. 

To arms then ! to arms ! 'tis fair Freedom invites us ; 
The trumpet shrill sounding to battle excites us : 
The banners of virtue unfurled shall wave o'er us, 
Our hero lead on, and the foe fly before us. 

On Heaven and Washington placing reliance. 
We'll meet the bold Briton and bid him defiance ; 
Our cause we'll support, for 'tis just and 'tis glorious — 
When men fight for freedom, they must be victorious. 



Ex. h-n..— CHARGE TO THE GRAND JURY OF NEW YORK. 

September 9, 1777. 

JOHN JAY.* 

Gentlemen: It affords me very sensible pleasure to con- 
gratulate you on the dawn of that free, mild and equal gov- 
ernment which now begins to rise and break from amidst 
those clouds of anarchy, confusion and licentiousness which 
the arbitrary and violent dominion of the king of Great 
Britain had spread, in a a greater or less degree, over all 
of these States. This is one of those signal instances in 

* An idea of the value of Judge Jay's services to the Republic, especially 
in a diplomatic capacity, may be acquired by the following passage from 
Hildreth, in reference to the person to be selected to negotiate the Treaty 
with Great Britain in 1'794, afterwards called Jay's Treaty: "In point of 
Revolutionary services, only the President himself stood upon higher ground. 
In lofty disinterestedness, in unyielding integrity, in superiority to the illusions 
of passion, no one of the great men of the Revolution approached so near to 
Washington. Profound knowledge of the law, inflexible sense of justice, and 
solidity of judgment, had especially marked him out for the ofl&ce which he 
held. Having played a very active part in a State (New York), the seat of 
hostilities during the whole struggle of the Revolution, he know what war 
was, and dreaded it accordingly." Jay was a native of New York, and held 
several important appointments in that state. 



CHARGE TO THE GRAND JURY OP NEW YORK. 103 

which Divine Providence has made the tyranny of princes 
instrumental in breaking the chains of their subjects ; and 
rendered the most inhuman designs productive of the best 
consequences to those against vs^hom they were intended. 

The infatuated sovereign of Britain, forgetful that kings 
were the servants, not the proprietors, and ought to be the 
fathers, not the incendiaries, of their people, has, by destroy- 
ing our former constitutions, enabled us to erect more eligible 
systems of government on their ruins ; alid, by unwarrant- 
able attempts to bind us in all cases whatsoever, has reduced 
us to the happy necessity of being free from his control in 
any. 

Whoever compares our present with our former constitu- 
tion, will find abundant reason to rejoice in the exchange, 
and readily admit that all the calamities incident to this war 
will be amply compensated by the many benefits arising from 
this glorious revolution, — a revolution which, in the whole 
course of its rise and progress, is distinguished by so many 
marks of the Divine favor and interposition, that no doubt 
can remain of its being finally accomplished. 

It was begun, and has been supported, in a manner so 
singular, and I may say miraculous, that when future ages 
shall read its history, they will be tempted to consider a 
great part of it as fabulous. What, among other things, can 
appear more unworthy of credit, than that in an enlightened 
age, in a civilized and Christian country, in a nation so cele- 
brated for humanity, as well as love of liberty and justice, 
as the English once justly were, a prince should arise, who, 
by the influence of corruption alone, should be able to seduce 
them into a combination to reduce three millions of his most 
loyal and affectionate subjects to absolute slavery, under 
pretence of a right appertaining to God alone, of binding 
them in all cases whatever, not even excepting cases of con- 
science and religion ? What can appear more improbable, 
though true, than that this prince, and this people, should 
obstinately steel their hearts and shut their ears against the 
most humble petitions and affectionate remonstrances ; and 
unjustly determine, by violence and force, to execute designs 
which were reprobated by every principle of humanity and 
policy ; designs which would have been execrable, if intend- 
ed against savages and enemies, and yet formed against men 
descended from the same common ancestors with them- 
selves ; men who had liberally contributed to their support, 
and cheerfully fought their battles, even in remote and bale- 



104 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE. 

ful climates ? Will it not appear extraordinary that thirteen 
colonies, the objects of their wicked designs, divided by "va- 
riety of governments and manners should immediately be- 
come one people ; and though without funds, without maga- 
zines, without disciplined troops, in the face of their enemies, 
unanimously determine to be free ; and undaunted by the 
power of Britain, refer their cause to the justice of the Al- 
mighty, and resolve to repel force by force. Will it not be 
matter of doubt ahd wonder that, notwithstanding these 
difficulties, they should raise armies, establish funds, carry 
on commerce, grow rich by the spoils of their enemies, and 
bid defiance to the armies of Britain, the mercenaries of 
Germany and the savages of the wilderness ? But, however 
incredible these things may appear, we know them to be 
true, and we should always remember that the striking proofs 
of the interposition of Heaven in delivering us from the 
threatened bondage of Britain, ought to make us ascribe our 
salvation to its true cause, and instead of swelling our breasts 
with arrogant ideas of our own prowess and importance, 
kindle in them a flame of gratitude and piety which may 
consume all remains of vice and irreligion. 



Ex. Jj-ni.— BARBARITY OF EMPLOYING INDIANS IN WAR. 
Speech in Parliament, Nov. 18, 1777. 



EARL OF CHATHAM. 



My Loeds : I am astonished ! shocked ! to hear such prin- 
ciples confessed — to hear them avowed in this house, or in 
this country; principles equally unconstitutional, inhuman 
and unchristian! 

My lords, I did not intend to have encroached again upon 
your attention ; but I could not repress my indignation. I 
feel myself impelled by every duty. My lords, we are called 
upon as members of this house, as men, as Christian men, to 
protest against such notions standing near the throne, pol- 
luting the ear of Majesty. "That God and nature put into 
our hands ! " I know not what ideas that lord may enter- 
tain of God and nature, but I know that such abominable 
principles are equally abhorrent to religion and humanity. 
What ! to attribute the sacred sanction of God and nature 



BAEBAEITY OF EMPLOTIPfG ESDIANS EN" WAE. 105 

to the massacre of the Indian scalping-knife, to the cannibal 
savage, torturing, murdering, roasting and eating, literally, 
my lords, eating the mangled victims of his barbarous bat- 
tles ! Such horrible notions shock every precept of religion, 
divine or natural, every generous feeling of humanity, and 
every sentiment of honor. 

These abominable principles, and this more abominable 
avoTral of them, demand the most decisive indignation. I 
call upon that right reverend bench, those holy ministers of 
the gospel, and pious pastors of our church, I conjure them 
to join in this holy work, and vindicate the religion of their 
God. I appeal to the wisdom and law of this learned bench, 
to defend and support the justice of their country. I call 
upon the bishops to interpose the unsullied sanctity of th^ 
lawn ; upon the learned judges to interpose the purity 
their ermine, to save us from this pollution. I call upon the 
honor of your lordships to reverence the dignity of your an- 
cestors, and to maintain your own. I call upon the spirit and 
humanity of my country to vindicate the national character. 
I invoke the genius of the constitution. From the tapestry 
that adorns these walls the immortal ancestors of this noble 
lord frown with indignation at the disgrace of his country. 
In vain he led your victorious fleets against the boasted Jo- 
rnada of Spain ; in vain he defended and established the hon- 
or, the liberties, the religion, the protestant religion of this 
country, against the arbitrary cruelties of popery and the In- 
quisition, if these more than popish cruelties and inquisitorial 
practices are let loose among us. To turn forth into our set- 
tlements, among our ancient connexions, friends and rela- 
tions, the merciless cannibal, thirsting for the blood of man, 
woman and child ! to send forth the infidel savage, against 
whom ? against your protestant brethren, to lay waste their 
country, to desolate their dwellings, and extirpate their race 
and name, with these horrible hell-hounds of savage war! 
— ^hell-hounds, I say, of savage war. Spain armed herself 
with blood-hounds to extirpate the wretched natives of 
America ; and we improve on the inhuman example even of 
Spanish cruelty; we turn loose these savage hell-hounds 
against our brethren and countrymen in America, of the 
same language, laws, liberties and religion, endeared to us 
by every tie that should sanctify humanity. 

My lords, this awful subject, so important to our honor, 
our constitution and our religion, demands the most solemn 
and eflectual inquiry. And I again call upon your lordships, 
5* 



106 PATKIOTIC ELOQUENCE. 

and the united powers of the state, to examine it thoroughly 
and decisively, and to stamp upon it an indelible stigma of 
the public abhorrence. And I again implore these holy pre- 
lates of our religion to do away these iniquities from among 
us. Let them perform a lustration, let them purify this house, 
and this country, from this sin. 

My lords, I am old and weak, and unable at present to 
say more, but my feelings and indignation were too strong 
to have said less. I could not have slept this night in my 
bed, nor reposed my head on my pillow, without giving this 
vent to my eternal abhorrence of such preposterous and 
enormous principles. 



Ex. I.XLII.— PROTEST AGAINST MINISTERIAL MISCONDUCT. 

Speech in Parliament, Nov. 18th, 1777. 

EARL OF CHATHAM. 

I EiSE, my lords, to declare my sentiments on this most 
solemn and serious subject. It has imposed a load upon my 
mind which, I fear, nothing can remove ; but which impels 
me to endeavor its alleviation, by a free and unreserved com- 
munication of my sentiments. 

In the first ]3art of the address, I have the honor of 
heartily concurring with the noble earl who moved it. "No 
man feels sincerer joy than I do, nor can offer more genuine 
congratulation on every accession of strength to the succes- 
sion of the house of Brunswick. I therefore join in every 
congratulatioji on the birth of another princess, and the hap- 
py recovery of her majesty. But I must stop here. My 
courtly complaisance will carry me no further. I will not 
join in congratulation on misfortune and disgrace. I can 
not concur in a blind and servile address, which approves 
and endeavors to sanctify the monstrous measures which 
have heaped disgrace and misfortune upon us. This, my 
lords, is a perilous and tremendous moment ! It is not a 
time for adulation. The smoothness of flattery can not now 
avail ; cannot save us in thig-rugged and awful crisis. It is 
now necessary to instruct the throne in the language of 
truth. We must dispel the delusion and the darkness 



FOLLY OF ATTEMPTTEfG TO CONQTJEK AMERICA. 107 

which envelop it ; and display, in its full danger and true 
colors, the ruin that is brought to our doors. 

This, my lords, is our duty. It is the proper function 
of this noble assembly, sitting, as we are, upon our honors in 
this house, the hereditary council of the crown. Who is the 
minister — ichere is the minister, that has dared to suggest 
to the throne the contrary unconstitutional language this 
day delivered from it ? The accustomed language from the 
throne has been application to parliament for advice, and 
a reliance on its constitutional advice and assistance. As 
it is the right of parliament to give, so it is the duty of the 
crown to ask it. But on this day, and in this extreme 
momentous exigency, no reliance is placed on our constitu- 
tional counsels ! no advice is asked from the sober and en- 
lightened care of parliament ! but the crown, from itself, and 
by itself, declares an unalterable determination to pursue 
measures — and what measures, my lords ? The measures 
that have produced the imminent perils that threaten us ; the 
measures that have brought ruin to our doors. 

Can the minister of the day now expect a continuance of 
support in this niinous infatuation ? Can parliament be so 
dead to its dignity and its duty, as to be thus deluded into 
the loss of the one, and the violation of the other ? To give 
an unlimited credit and support for the steady perseverance 
in measures not proposed for our parliamentary advice, but 
dictated and forced upon us — in measures, I say, my lords, 
which have reduced this flourishing empire to ruin and con- 
tempt ! " But yesterday, and England might have stood 
against the world ; now none so poor as to do her reverence." 
I use the words of a poet ; but though it be poetry, it is 
no fiction. It is a shameful truth, that not only the power 
and strength of this country are wasting away and expiring ; 
but her well-earned glories, her true honor, and substantial 
dignity are sacrificed. 



Ex. L1IV.— FOLLY OF ATTEMPTING TO CONQUER AMERICA. 

Speech, in Parliament, Nov. 18, 1777. 

EARL OP CHATHAM. 

France, my lords, has insulted you ; she has encouraged 
and sustained America, and whether America be wrong or 



108 PATEIOTIC ELOQUENCE. 

right, the dignity of this country ought to spurn at the 
officious insult of French interference. The ministers and am- 
bassadors of those who are called rebels and enemies, are 
in Paris, in Paris they transact the reciprocal interests of 
America and France. Can there be a more mortifying 
insult ? Can even our ministers sustain a more humiliating 
disgrace ! Do they dare to resent it ? Do they presume 
even to hint a vindication of their honor and the dignity 
of the state by requiring the dismission of the plenipoten- 
tiaries of America ? Such is the degradation to which they 
have reduced the glories of England. 

The people whom they affect to call contemptible rebels, 
but whose growing power has at last obtained the name 
of enemies ; the people with whom they have engaged this 
country in war, and against whom they now command our 
implicit support in every measure of desperate hostility, this 
people, despised as rebels, or acknowledged as enemies, are 
abetted against you, supplied with every military store, 
their interests consulted, and their ambassadors entertained, 
by your inveterate enemy ! and our ministers dare not inter- 
pose with dignity or effect. Is this the honor of a great king- 
dom ? Is this the indignant spirit of England, who " but yes- 
terday " gave law to the house of Bourbon ? My lords, the 
dignity of nations demands a decisive conduct in a situation 
like this. 

Even when the greatest prince that perhaps this coun- 
try ever saw, filled our throne, the requisition of a Spanish 
general on a similar subject was attended to, and complied 
with. For, on the spirited remonstrance of the Duke of 
Alva, Elizabeth found herself obliged to refuse the Flemish 
exiles all countenance, support, or even entrance into her 
dominions ; and the Count le Marque, with his few des- 
perate followers, was expelled the kingdom. Happening to 
arrive at the Brille, and finding it weak in defence, they 
made themselves masters of the place ; and this was the 
foundation of the United Provinces. 

My lords, this ruinous and ignominious situation, where 
we can not act with su6cess, nor suffer with honor, calls 
upon us in the strongest and loudest language of truth, to 
rescue the ear of majesty from the delusions which surround 
it. The desperate state of our army abroad is in part 
known ; no man thinks more highly of it than I do. I love 
and honor the English troops. I know their virtues and 
their valor. I know they can achieve anything except im- 



A HYMN". 109 

possibilities ; and I know that the conquest of English 
America is an impossibility/. You can not, I venture to say 
it. you can not conquer America. 

Your armies in the last war effected everything that could 
be effected, and what was it ? It cost a numerous army, un- 
der the command of a most able general, now a noble lord in 
this house, a long and laborious campaign, to expel five 
thousand Frenchmen from French America. My lords, you 
can not conquer America. What is your present situation 
there ? We do not know the worst ; but we know, that in 
three campaigns we have done nothing and suffered much. 
Besides the sufferings, perhaps total loss, of the northern 
force, the best appointed army that ever took the field, com- 
manded by Sir William Howe, has retired from the Ameri- 
can lines. He was obliged to relinquish his attempt, and 
with great delay and danger to adopt a new and distant 
plan -of operations. 

We shall soon know, and in any event have reason to 
lament, what may have happened since. As to conquest, 
therefore, my lords, I repeat, it is impossible. You may 
swell every expense, and every effort, still more extrava- 
gantly ; pile and accumulate every assistance you can buy 
or borrow ; traffic and barter with every little pitiful Ger- 
man prince, that sends and sells his subjects to the shambles 
of a foreign despot ; your efforts are forever vain and im- 
potent ; doubly so from this mercenary aid upon which you 
rely. For it irritates, to an incurable resentment, the minds 
of your enemies, to overrun them with the mercenary sons 
of rapine and plunder ; devoting them and their possessions 
to the rapacity of hireling cruelty ! If I were an American, 
as I am an Englishman, while a foreign troop was landed 
in my country, I would lay down my arms never^ nevee. 
NEVER. 



Ez. LXV.— ^ HYMN. 

Written 1778. 

WILLIAM BILLINGS. 



Let tyrants shake their u-on rod, 

And slavery clank her galling chains ; 

We fear them not ; we trust in God — 
New England's God forever reigns. 



110 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE. 

The foe comes on with haughty stride ; 

Our troops advance with martial noise ; 
Their veterans flee before our youth, 

And generals yield to beardless boys. 

When God inspired us for the fight, 

Their ranks were broken — fled their host ; 

Their ships were shattered in our sight, 
Or swiftly driven from our coast. 

What grateful ofiering shall we bring ? 

What shall we render to the Lord ? 
Loud hallelujahs let us sing. 

And praise his name on every chord. 



Ex. LXVL—OIf THE CHOICE OF A WAR WITH AMERICA OR 
WITH FRANCE. 

Speecli in Parliament, February 17, 1778, 

CHARLES JAMES FOX.* 

You have now two wars before you, of which you must 
choose one, for both you can not support. The war against 
America has been hitherto carried on by her alone, unassist- 
ed by any ally; yet notwithstanding she stood alone, you 
have been obliged uniformly to increase your exertions, and 
to push your efibrts to the extent of your power, without 
being able to bring it to any favorable issue. You have ex- 
erted all your strength hitherto without efiect, and you can 
not now divide a force already found inadequate to its ob- 
ject; the war with America is against your own country- 
men ; every blow you strike there is against yourselves, even 
though you should be able (which you never will be) to force 
them to submit. 

The war of the Americans is a war of passion ; it is of a 
nature to be supported by the most powerful virtues — love 
of liberty and of country — and at the same time by those 
passions in the human heart which give courage, strength and 

* Fox was one of the most renowned of English ParKamentary orators ; 
and, like Chatham, Burke, and Pitt, his abilities were always enlisted on the 
side of the Americans. He died in the same year with William Pitt, 1806. 



AMEEICA LOST TO GREAT BEITAIIT. Ill 

perseverance to man ; the spirit of revenge for the injuries 
you have done them, of retaliation for the hardships inflicted 
on them, and of opposition to the unjust powers you would 
have exercised over them ; everything combines to animate 
them to this war, and such a war is without end ; for what- 
ever obstinacy enthusiasm ever inspired man with, yon now 
have to contend against in America. 'No matter what gives 
birth to that enthusiasm — whether the name of religion or 
of liberty — the eifects are the same ; it inspires a spirit that 
is unconquerable, and solicitous to undergo difficulties and 
dangers ; and as long as there is a man in America, so long 
will you have him against you in the field. The war Avith 
France is of another sort ; it is a war of interest. It was inter- 
est that first induced her to engage in it, and it is by that 
same interest she will measure its continuance. 

Nobody is more sensible than I am of the necessity of 
unanimity at this juncture ; and I wish I had the opportuni- 
ty aflbrded me of supporting the ministry with justice to the 
country ; but that, Sir, can never be the case with the pres- 
ent ; I know them too well to do so, and shall feel it my 
duty to give them every opposition in my power. I know 
that doing so at this time will be called clogging the wheels 
of government at a time when they ought to be assisted by 
every man ; but, Sir, they have reduced us to that paradoxi- 
cal situation that I must choose one of two evils, for they 
have not left>us the power of choosing any good. It is a 
paradox in fact, and I will choose that part which seems to 
me, though bad, the best ; I must, consequently, use all my 
exertions to remove the present ministry, by using every 
means in my power to clog them in this House, to clog them 
out of this House, and to clog everything they engage in 
while they continue in office ; and I will do so because I con- 
sider this course to be less ruinous than to submit any longer 
to their blundering system of politics. 



Ex.LXVll.—AIfSHCIA LOST TO GREAT BRITAIN. 

Speech in Parliament, Nov. 26, 1778. 

JOHN WILKES. 

The honorable gentleman. Sir, has told us that the 
Americans were determined to separate their rights from 



112 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE. 

ours, to dissolve all connection between us. The fact is tru- 
ly stated. They no longer consider themselves emharked 
with us in the sinking vessel of this state. They avoid us 
as a tyrannical, unprincipled, rapacious and ruined nation. 
Their only fear is that the luxury and profligacy of this 
country should gain their people. It was a long patience 
and forbearance they practised before the idea of being dis- 
severed from the mother country gained ground among the 
Americans. They were driven into it by our injustice and 
violence. Kepeated violations of their rights, accumulated 
injuries, wanton insults, and cruelties shocking to human 
nature, have brought about this wonderful revolution. 

Now it appears to me an impossibility to bring back the 
Americans to any dependence on this kingdom. Since the 
declaration of independence, firmness and vigor have gov- 
erned all the counsels of the Congress. That declaration 
was made at a moment which proved them strangers to fear, 
and in their idea superior to all the efforts of which we were 
capable. From that fatal era, July, 1776, has the Congress, 
or any one of the thirteen IJnited States, discovered the 
faintest wish of returning to the obedience of our sovereign ? 
No man will be bold enough to assert it. On the contrary, 
the Americans have increased in their hatred of us, and aver- 
sion to the yoke of bondage which we were preparing for 
them. 

Torrents of noble blood have already flowed in this quar- 
rel; yet the few conquests we made we were obliged to 
abandon. Towards the close of the last year, we congratu- 
lated ourselves on the taking of Philadelphia, the seat of the 
vacant Congress, in the insulting language of administration. 
Before the present year is half expired, Sir Henry Clinton 
evacuated Philadelphia at three o'clock in the morning, and 
escaped through infinite difiiculties to ISTew York, very judi- 
ciously avoiding the direct road, where he knew the enemy 
was in force. The Congress returned in triumph to Phila- 
delj)hia, and congratulated the inhabitants of North America 
on the important victory of Monmouth over the British 
grand army, and the evacuation of Philadelphia, as they had 
before done on the evacuation of Boston by General Howe. 
Sir, the Americans have suffered greatly ; but their sufferings 
were borne with temper and courage, for they were in the 
cause of public virtue. They bore adversity like men of. 
fixed principle and honor engaged in a righteous cause, and 
determined never to crouch to oppression. 



ADDEESS TO THE STATES. 113 

A sei-ies of four years' disgraces and defeats are surely 
sufficient to convince us of the absolute impossibility of con- 
quering America by force, and I fear the gentler means of 
persuasion have equally failed. America is, in my opinion, 
irrecoyerably lost. It is indifferent to her whether you 
think proper to acknowledge her independency, or to call her 
children your subjects, and her provinces your colonies. 
The rest of the world will hear those appellations with deri- 
sion. The very expense of your fleets and armies must ex- 
haust this country. You experienced this for four years, 
with raw, undisciplined farmers and countrymen. You are 
now to combat hardy, experienced soldiers. Let pride there- 
fore yield to prudence, withdraw your fleets and armies, give 
up this unjiist, barbarous and destructive war, and inquire 
who deluded you into this unhappy system of policy. 



Ex. LXVm.—ABDBUSS TO THE STATES, BY THE COJ^- 
TIXE:^^TAL congress, may 26, \ni9, 

Ameeica, without arms, ammunition, discipline, revenue, 
government or ally, almost totally stript of commerce, and 
in the weakness of youth, as it were Avith " a staff and a 
sling " only, dared, in the name of the Lord of Hosts, to en- 
gage a gigantic adversary, prepared at all points, boasting 
of his strength, and of whom even mighty warriors were 
greatly afraid. * * Infatuated as your enemies have been 
from the beginning of this contest, do you imagine that they 
can now flatter themselves with a hope of conquering you, 
unless you are false to yourselves ? 

Rouse yourselves, therefore, that this campaign may fin- 
ish the great work you have so nobly carried on for several 
years past.* What nation ever engaged in such a contest 
under such a complication of disadvantages, so soon sur- 
mounted many of them, and in so short a period of time had 
a certain prospect of a speedy and happy conclusion ? Con- 
sider how much you have done, and how little comparative- 
ly remains to be done to crown you with success. Per- 
severe ; and you insure peace, freedom, safety, glory, sover- 
eig-nty and felicity, to yourselves, your children, and your 
cMldren's childi*en. 

Encouraged by favors already received from Infinito 



114 PATEIOTIC ELOQUENCE. 

Goodness, gratefully acknowledging them, ^nd earnestly 
imploring their continuance, vigorously employ the means 
placed by Providence in your hands, for completing your 
labors. 

Fill up your battalions — be prepared in every part to 
repel the incursions of your enemies — place your several quotas 
in the continental treasury^ — lend money for public uses — 
provide effectually for expediting the conveyance of supplies 
to your armies and fleets and for your allies — prevent the 
produce of the country from being monopolized — diligently 
promote piety, virtue, brotherly love, learning, frugality and 
moderation — and may you be approved before Almighty 
God worthy of those blessings we devoutly wish you to 
enjoy. 



Ex. luTl^.—EULOGIUM ON THOSE WHO HAVE FALLEN IN 
THE CONTEST WITH GREAT BRITAIN, DELIVERED 
JULY 5, 111^. 

HUGH HENKY BRACKENRIDGE.* 

It is the high reward of those who have risked their 
lives in a just and necessary war, that their names are sweet 
in the mouths of men, and every age shall know their ac- 
tions. I know my abilities rise not on a level with so great 
a subject, but I love the memory of the men, and it is my 
hope that the affection I feel will be to me instead of genius, 
and give me warm words to advance their praises. 

For what cause did these brave men sacrifice their lives ? 
For that cause which in all ages has engaged the hopes, the 
wishes, the endeavors of the hearts of men — the cause of 
liberty ? What was in our power we have done with the 
bodies of these men ; we have paid them military honors — 
we have placed them in their native earth, and it is with ven- 
eration that we yet view their tombs upon the lonely glade, 
or the distant hill. Their names shall be read with those of 
Pelopidas, Epaminondas, and the worthies of the world. 
Posterity shall quote them for parallels and for examples. 
When they mean to dress the hero with the fairest praises, they 

* Judge of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania. 



EULOGIUM ON THOSE WHO HAYE FALIJEN. 115 

shall say lie was gallant and distinguished in his early fall, 
like Warren ; prudent and intrepid as Montgomery ; faithful 
and generous as Washington ; he fell in the hold and resolute 
advance, like Mercer ; he saw the honor which his valor had 
acquired, and fainted in the arms of victory, like Herkimer ; 
having gallantly repulsed the foe, he fell covered with 
wounds, in his old age, like Wooster. 

Having paid our tribute to the memory of these men, it 
remains for us to soothe the grief of those who have been 
deprived of a father, bereaved of a son, or who have lost 
a husband, brother, or lover in the contest. Fathers, whose 
heroic sons have offered up their lives on the altar of free- 
dom, it is yours to recollect, that these lives were given them 
for the service of their coimtry. Sons, whose heroic fathers 
have early left you, and in the conflict of war have mixed 
with departed heroes ; be congratulated on the fair inheri- 
tance of fame which you are entitled to possess. Kit is ever 
lawful for us to array ourselves in borrowed honor, surely it 
is best drawn from those who have acted a distinguished part 
in the service of their country. If it is at all consistent with 
the feeling of philosophy and reason to boast of hneal glory, 
surely it is most allowable in those who boast it as flowing 
from such a source. 

We despise the uninstructed mind of that man who shall 
obtrude upon our ears the idea of a vain ancestral honor ; 
but we love the youth, and transfer to him the reputation of 
his father, who, when the rich and haughty citizen shall fr-own 
upon him as ignobly descended, shall say, "I had a father 
who fell in the service of his country." 

And you, my gallant countrymen, your fame shall ascend 
on the current of the stream of time. It shall play with the 
breezes of the morning. Men at rest, in the cool age of life, 
fr'om the ftiry of a thousand wars flnished by their fathers, 
shall observe the spreading ensign. They shall hail it, as it 
waves with variegated giories ; and feeling all the warm 
rapture of the heart, shall give it their plaudit from the 
shores. 



116 • PATKIOTIC ELOQUEIS'CE. 

Ex. l.lX.—HYMir AT THE CONSECRATION OF PULASKTS 

BANNER, 1779.* 

H. "W. LONGFELLOW. 

When the dying flame of day 

Through the chancel shot its ray, 

Far the glimmering tapers shed 

Faint light on the cowled head ; 

And the censer burning swung, 

Where, before the altar, hung 

The blood-red banner, that with prayer 

Had been consecrated there. 
And the nuns' sweet hymn was heard the while, 
Sung low in the dim, mysterious aisle. 

" Take thy banner ! may it wave 
Proudly o'er the good and brave ; 
When the battle's distant wail 
Breaks the silence of our vale. 
When the clarion's music thrills 
To the hearts of these lone hills. 
When the spear in conflict shakes, 
And the strong lance quivering breaks. 

" Take thy banner ! and beneath 
The battle cloud's encircling wreath, 
Guard it ! — till our homes are free — 
Guard it ! — God will prosper thee ! 
In the dark and trying hour, 
In the breaking forth of power, 
In the rush of steeds and men. 
His right hand will shield thee then. 

" Take thy banner ! but when night 
Closes round the ghastly fight. 
If the vanquished warrior bow, 
SjDare him ! by our holy vow, 

* Many noble foreigners, inspired by a kindred love of liberty to that 
which actuated the Americans, came to this country to volunteer their services 
in our revolutionary struggle. Count Pulaski was a Pole, highly distinguished 
in his own country for his bravery and patriotism. He received a mortal 
wound at the second attack on Savannah, Oct., 1779. The banner here cele- 
brated was embroidered for him by the Moravian nuns at Bethlehem, Penn., 
and was a very elegant one of crimson silk. 



THE CONDITION OF AMBEICA. 117 

By our prayers and many tears, 

By the mercy that endears, 

Spare him ! — he onr love hath shared ! 

Spare him ! — as thou wouldst be spared ! 

" Take thy banner ! — and if e'er 
Thou shouldst press the soldier's bier, 
And the muffled drum should beat 
To the tread of mournful feet. 
Then this crimson flag shall be 
Martial cloak and shroud for thee." 

The warrior took that banner proud : 
It was his martial cloak and shroud ! ' 



Ex. i:^Ti.— ANSWER TO INQUIRIES AS TO THE CONDI- 
TION OF AMERICA, PARIS, ^SO. 

JOHN ADAMS.* 

Your first proposition, ^ir, is "to prove, by striking facts, 
that an implacable hatred and aversion reigns throughout 
America." 

In answer to this, I beg leave to say, that the Americans 
are animated by higher principles, and better and stronger 
motives than hatred and aversion. They universally aspire 
after a free trade with all the commercial world, instead of 
that mean monopoly in which they were shackled by Great 
Britain, to the disgrace and mortification of America, and to 
the injury of all the rest of Europe, to whom it seems as if 
God and nature .intended that so great a magazine of pro- 
ductions, so great a source of commerce, and so rich a nursery 

* Mr. Adams was sent to Europe in 1'7'79, to endeavor to negotiate a 
peace and a treaty of commerce with Great Britain. While abroad he wrote 
and published many letters on subjects similar to that of the present one, with 
the purpose of enlightening public sentiment as to the character of the contest 
going on in America. Peace was declared in 1783, and two years af- 
terwards Mr. Adams was appointed the first minister to England. He was 
subsequently elected Vice-President, and then President, of the United 
States. After leaving the latter office, he passed his time mainly in retire- 
ment, his last public service being to attend as delegate a convention for revis- 
ing the Constitution of Massachusetts, his native state. This was in 1820, 
when he was in the eighty-sixth year of his age. 



118 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE. 

of seamen, as America is, should be open. They despise, 
Sir, they disdain the idea of being again monopolized by any 
one nation whatsoever ; and this contempt is at least as 
powerful a motive for action as any hatred. 

Moreover, Sir, they consider themselves contending for 
the purest principles of liberty, civil and religious ; for those 
forms of government under the faith of which their country 
was planted, and for those great improvements of them 
which have been made by their new constitutions. They 
consider themselves not only as contending for these great 
blessings, but against the greatest evils that any country ever 
suffered ; for they know, if they were to be deceived by Eng- 
land into breaking their union among themselves, and their 
faith with their allies, they would ever after be in the power 
of England, who would bring them into the most abject sub- 
mission to a parliament, the most corrupted in the world, in 
which they have no voice or influence, at three thousand 
miles distance from them. 

• But if hatred must come into consideration, I know not 
how to justify their hatred better than by showing the provo- 
cations they have had to hatred. 

If tearing up from the foundation those forms of govern- 
ment under which they were born and educated, and thrived 
and prospered, to the infinite emolument of England ; if 
imposing taxes upon them, or endeavoring to do it, for 
twenty years, without their own consent ; if commencing 
hostilities upon them — ^burning their towns — butchering their 
people — deliberately starving prisoners — exciting hosts of In- 
dians to torture and scalp them, and purchasing Germans 
to destroy them, and hiring negro servants to murder their 
masters; — if all these, and many other things as bad, are 
not provocations enough to hatred, I would request to be 
informed what is or can be. And all these horrors the 
English have practised in America, from Boston to Savan- 
nah. 

To learn the present state of America, it is necessary 
to read the public papers. The present state of Great 
Britain and its dependencies may be learned in the same 
way. The omnipotence of the British army, and the om- 
nipotence of the British navy, are likely to go the same way. 



ANNIYEESAKY OKATION. 119 



Ex. ISSXH,— ANNIVERSARY ORATION, DELIVERED MARCH 

6, 1781. 

THOMAS DAWES. 

Mat the name of Washington continue steeled, as it ever 
has been, to the dark slanderous arrow that " flieth in secret." 
As it ever has been ! for none have offered to eclipse his glory- 
but have afterwards sunk away diminished and " shorn of 
their beams." 

Justice to other characters forbids our stopping to gaze 
at the constellation of heroes who shine brightest in our 
country's annals, and would fain draw forth a eulogium upon 
all who have gathered true laurels from the fields of America. 

" Thousands the tribute of our praise 
Demand ; but who can count the stars of heaven ? 
Who speak their influence on this lower world? " 

Whither has our gratitude borne us ? Let us behold a 
contrast; — the army of an absoluta prince — a profession dis- 
tinct from the citizen, and in a different interest — a haughty 
phalanx, whose object of warfare is pay, and who, the battle 
over, and if perchance they conquer, return to slaughter the 
sons of peace. Oh, our bleeding country ! was it for this our 
hoary sires sought thee through all the elements, and having 
found thee sheltering away from the western wave, disconso- 
late, cheered thy sad face, and decked thee out like the gar- 
den of God ? There was a time when we were all ready to 
cry out that our fathers had done a vain thing — I mean upon 
that unnatural night which we now commemorate^ — when the 
fire of Brutus was in many a heart — when the strain of Grac- 
chus was on many a tongue. "Wretch that I am, where 
shall I retreat ? Whither shall I turn me ? To the capitol ? 
The capitol swims in my brother's blood! To my fami- 
ly? There must I see a wretched, a mournful and afflicted 
mother ! " 

Misery loves to brood over its own woes ; and so peculiar 
were the horrors of that night, so expressive the pictures of 
despair, so various the face of death, that not all the grand 
tragedies that have since been acted, can crowd from our 
minds that era of the human passions, that preface to the 
general conflict that now rages. May we never forget to 
offer a sacrifice to the memories of our friends who bled so 
early at the foot of liberty. Hitherto we have nobly avenged 



120 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE, 

their fall; but as ages can not expunge tlie debt, their melan- 
choly ghosts still rise at a stated season, and will forever 
wander in the night of this noted anniversary. Hark ! even 
now in the hollow wind I hear the voice of the departed. 
" Oh, ye who listen to wisdom and asj)ire to immortality, as 
ye have avenged our blood, thrice blessed ! As ye still war 
against the mighty hunters of the earth, your names are re- 
corded in heaven ! " 

Let justice then be done to our country, let justice be 
done to our great leader ; and as the only means, under Hea- 
ven, of his salvation, let his army b.e replenished. That 
grand duty done, we will once more adopt an enthusiasm 
sublime in itself, but still more so as coming from the lips of 
a first patriot — the chief magistrate of this commonwealth. 
" I have," said he, " a most animating -confidence that the 
present noble struggle for liberty will terminate gloriously 
for America." Aspiring to such a confidence, 

" I see the expressive leaves of Fate thrown wide, 
Of future times I see the mighty tide ; 
And borne triumphant on its buoyant wave, 
A godhke number of the great and brave. 
The bright, wide ranks of martyrs — ^here they rise ; 
Heroes and patriots move before my eyes ; 
These crowned with olive, those with laur^ come, 
Like the first fathers of immortal Eome. 
Fly, Time ! oh, lash thy fiery steeds away — 
Koll rapid wheels, and bring the smiling day 
When these blest states, another promised land. 
Chosen and fostered by the Almighty hand. 
Supreme shall rise — their crowded shores shall be 
The fized abodes of empire and of liberty." 



Ex. LXXllL—ADDEUSS FROM THE LEGISLATURE OF THE 
STATE OF NEW YORK TO THEIR CONSTITUENTS, MARCH 
13, 1781.* 

Listen, friends, fellow-citizens, and countrymen, to the 
recommendations of that great and good man, whose virtues 

* In the stormy and anxious days of the Revolution there were always 
some discontented spirits who gave more annoyance to the devoted patriots at 
the head of affairs than even their foreign enemies, because the effect of their 
murmurs was to clog the wheels of government and prevent those in office 



ADDRESS. 121 

and patriotism, as the soldier and the citizen, have drawn 
down the admiration, not of America only, but all Europe ; 
whose well-earned fame will roll down the tide of time until 
it is absorbed in the abyss of eternity. Listen to what he 
recommended to • your army on a recent and an alarming oc- 
casion, and seriously apply it to yourselves and to us : 

" The general is deeply sensible of the sufferings of the 
army ; he leaves no expedient unused to relieve them ; and 
he is persuaded that Congress and the several States are 
doing everything in their power for the same purpose. But 
while we look to the public for the fulfilment of its engage- 
ments, we should do it with proper allowance for the embar- 
rassments of public affaii's ; we began a contest for liberty 
and independence ill provided with the means of war, rely- 
ing on our patriotism to supply deficiencies ; we expected to 
encounter many wants and difficulties, and we should neither 
shrink from them when they happen, nor fly in the face of 
law and government to procure redress. There is no doubt 
the public will, in the event, do ample justice to the men 
fighting and suffering in their defence ; but it is our duty to 
bear present evils with fortitude, looking forward to the pe- 
riod when our country will have it more in its power to re- 
ward our services. History is full of examples of armies 
suffering, with patience, extremities of distress which exceed 
those we have experienced, and those in the cause of ambi- 
tion and conquest, not in that of the rights of humanity, of 
their country, of their families, and of themselves. Shall we, 
who aspire to the distinction of a patriot army, who are con- 
tending for everything precious in society, against everything 
hateful and degrading in slavery; shall we, who call our- 
selves citizens, discover less constancy and military virtue 
than the mercenary instruments of ambition ? " 

These are the sentiments of a Washington ; and although 
he had us not immediately in view, yet every sentence is re- 
plete with wholesome admonition to all orders of men in 
these States. The force and artifice of the enemy have hith- 
erto proved equally abortive. Britain's proud boasts of con- 
quest are no more, and all Europe detests her cause. You 
are already within sight of the promised land, and, by the 
blessing of Heaven, and adequate efforts on your part, you 

from making the most of the scanty means at their command. We liave here 
an earnest appeal from one of the perturbed and weary councils of the nation, 
in which the noblest incentives are held up to the malcontents in the hope of 
allaying their restless spirit of discontent. 

6 



122 PATEIOTIC ELOQUENCE. 

may shortly hope, under your own vine and your own fig- 
tree, to spend the remainder of your days in tranquillity and 
ease ; when the dangers you have passed, and the difficulties 
you sustain, will only seem to heighten your enjoyments ; 
when you will look forward to the applauses of succeeding 
ages, and extend your happiness to the most remote period, 
by anticipating that which your exertions shall transmit to 
posterity. 

But, friends, fellow-citizens, and countrymen, vain is your 
hope to experience these glorious rewards for all your toils, 
and quaff the cup of bliss ; in vain has our hardy ancestor 
traversed the trackless ocean to seek in the wilds of the new 
world a refuge from the oppression of the old ; in vain for 
our sakes has he fled from that tyranny which, by taxing in- 
dustry, transmits poverty as an inheritance from one genera- 
tion to another ; in vain has he striven with the ruthless bar- 
barian, and with the various difficulties incident on the emi- 
gration to countries untrodden by civilized man, if, by 
internal discord, by a pusillanimous impatience under un- 
, avoidable burdens, by an immoderate attachment to perisha- 
ble property, by an intemperate jealousy of those servants 
whom each revolving year may displace from your confi- 
dence, by forgetting those fundamental principles which in- 
duced America to separate from Britain, we play into the 
hands of a haughty nation, spurred on to perseverance in in- 
jury by a despairing and unrelenting tyrant, and his rapa- 
cious minions. 

Your representatives feel themselves incapable of believ- 
ing that any but the misguided, the weak and the unwary 
amongst our fellow citizens, can be guilty of so foully stain- 
ing the honor of their State, and wantonly becoming parri- 
cides of their own peace and happiness, and that of their pos- 
terity. Let us then all, for our interest is the same, with one 
heart and one voice, mutually aid and support each other. 
Let us steadily, unanimously, and vigorously prosecute the 
great business of establishing our independence. Thus shall 
we be free ourselves, and leave the blessings of freedom to 
millions yet unborn. 



123 



Ex, LXXIY.— ^iV EyGLISHMAN'S OPimOJS' OF THE 
AMERICAN WAR. 

Speech, in tiie House of Commoiis, June 12, 1781. 

"WILLIAir PITT.* 

A ^roBLE lord, in the heat of his zeal, has called it a holy- 
war. For my part, though the honorable gentleman who 
made the motion has been more than once in the course of 
the debate severely reprehended for calling it a wicked and 
accursed war, I am persuaded, and will affinn, that it is a 
most accursed, wicked, barbarous, cruel, unnatural, unjust 
and diabolical war !- It was conceived in injustice; it was 
nurtm-ed and brought forth in folly; its footsteps are marked 
with blood, slaughter, persecution and devastation ; in truth, 
everything which goes to constitute moral depravity ancl 
human turpitude, are to be found recorded there. But the 
mischief of it recoils on the unhappy people of this country, 
who are made the instruments by which the Avicked purposes 
of its authors are to be effected. The nation is drained of 
its best blood, its most vital resources of men and money. 
The expenses of it are enormous, much beyond any former 
experience ; and what has the British nation received in re- 
turn ? Xothing but a series of ineffective victories, or severe 
defeats ; victories celebrated only by a temporaiy triumph 
over our brethren whom we would trample down and de- 
stroy ; which have filled the land with mourning far the loss 
of dear and valuable relations, slain in the impious cause of 
enforcing unconditional submission, or with narratives of the 
glorious exertions of men struggling in the holy cause of 
liberty, though struggling under all the difficulties and dis- 
advantages which are in general deemed the necessary con- 
comitants of victory and success. Where is the Euglish- 
man who, on reading the narratives of those bloody and 
well-fought contests, can refrain from lamenting the loss 
of so much British blood spilt in such a cause ; or from 

* William Pitt, " the illustrious son of an illustrious father," was second 
son of the great Earl of Chatham, and inherited, with his father's great abili- 
ties, his love of constitutional liberty. He was elected to Parliament in lYSl, 
and therefore displayed his sympathy with America only during the latter 
part of the war ; but his voice was always raised on the side of freedom and 
justice. He was called " The Great Commoner," from the fact that, being a 
second son, he was not entitled to a seat in the House of Lords, but won all 
his distincrlon in the Commons. 



124 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE. 

weeping, on whatever side victory might be declared ? Add 
to this melancholy consideration, that on whichever side we 
look, we can perceive nothing but our natural aiid powerful 
enemies, or lukewarm and faithless friends, rejoicing in our 
calamities, or meditating our ultimate downfall. 



Ex. LXXY.—THB ATTACK ON FORT GJilSWOZD* 
^ September 7, 1781. 

T. K. POTTER. 

" Rise ! man the wall ! our clarion's blast 

Now sounds the final reveille ; 
This dawning morn must be the last 

Our fated band shall ever see. 
To life, but not to hope, farewell ! 

Yon trumpet-clang, and cannon's peal, 
And storming shout, and clash of steel, 
Is ours, but not our country's, knell. 
Welcome the Spartan's death ! 

'Tis no despairing strife ; 
We fall ! we die ! but our expiring breath 
Is Freedom's breath of |ife. 

" Here, on this new Thermoj^ylse, 

Our monument shall tower on high, 
And Gris wold's Fort hereafter be 

In bloodier fields the battle-cry." 
Thus Ledyard from the rampart cried ; 
And when his warriors saw the foe 
Like whelming billows move below, 
At once each dauntless heart replied, 

* After the treason of Benedict Arnold, he was rewarded by the British 
with the rank of Brigadier-General in their army, and in this capacity was 
sent to ravage and lay waste the coast of his native state, Connecticut. 
Among other valiant deeds he assaulted and took by storm Fort Griswold, 
opposite New London, and caused its brave commander, Col. Ledyard, with 
sixty of his garrison, to be slaughtered in cold blood after the surrender. In- 
formed of this outrage, the militia of the neighborhood assembled to avenge 
it ; but Arnold did not choose to risk an encounter with them, and reem- 
barked on board his ships with most undignified haste. 



IN MEMOEIAM. 125 

" Welcome the Spartan's death ! 

'Tis no despairing strife ; 
We fall ! we die ! but our expiring breath 

Is Freedom's breath of life." 

They come ! like autumn leaves they fall, 

Yet hordes on hordes they onward rush ; 
With gory tramp they mount the wall, 

Til] numbers the defenders crush — 
Till falls their flag when none remain. 
Well may the ruffians quake to tell 
How Ledyard and his hundred fell 
Amid a thousand foemen slain. 

They died the Spartan's death, 

But not in hopeless strife ; 
Like brothers died ; and their expuing breath 
Was Freedom's breath of life. 



Ez. LXXYI.— /i\r MJEMOJRIAM* 

PHILIP FRENEAF. 

At Eutaw Springs the valiant died : 
Their limbs with dust are covered o'er ; 

Your waves may tell, oh, tearful tide, 
How many heroes are no more ! 

If in this wreck of hope, the brave 
Can yet be thought to claim a tear, 

Oh, smite thy gentle breast, and say. 
The friends of freedom slumber here ! 

Thou, who shalt trace this bloody plain, 
K goodness rules thy generous breast. 

Sigh for the rural wasted reign ; 

Sigh for the shepherds, sunk to rest ! 

Stranger ! their humble graves adorn ; 
You too may fall, and ask a tear : 

* This poem is inscribed by the author, " To the memory of the brave 
Americans under General Greene, in South Carolina, who fell in the action of 
September 8, I'ZSl." 



126 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE. 

'Tis not tlie beauty of the morn 

That proves the evening shall be clear. 

They saw their injured country's woe, 
The flaming town, the wasted field ; 

Then rush'd to meet the insulting foe. 
They took the spear — but left the shield. 

But, like the Parthian, famed of old. 
Who, flying, still their arrows threw, 

These routed Britons fierce as bold. 
Retreated, but retreating slew. 

JSTow rest in peace our patriot band ; 

Though far from nature's limits thrown, 
We trust, they find a happier land, 

A brighter sunshine of their own. 



Ex. LXXVIL—CIRCULAE LETTER FROM CONGRESS TO THE 
STATES, DECEMBER 11, 1'781. 

Seven years have nearly passed since the sword was 
first unsheathed. The sums expended in so long a period in 
a just and necessary war must appear moderate; nor can 
any demand for pecuniary aid be deemed exorbitant by those 
who compute the extent of the public exigencies and the 
proportion of the requisition to the ability of the States. 
Suppose not that funds exist for our relief beyond the limits 
of these states. As the possessions of the citizens constitute 
our natural resources, and from a sense of their sufficiency 
the standard of war was erected against Great Britain, so on 
them alone we now rely. 

But the want of money is not the only source of our diffi- 
culties ; nor do the enemy gather consolation from the state 
of our finances alone. We are distressed by the thinness of 
our battalions. Tardiness in the collection of our troops has 
constantly encouraged in our enemy a suspicion that Ameri 
can opposition is on the decline. Hence money from time 
to time is poured into the coffers of our enemy ; and the 
lender is perhaps allured by the prospect of receiving it 
with a usurious interest from the spoils of confiscation. 



EETUEN OP BRITISH FUGITIVES ADVOCATED. 127 

To whom then rather than to yourselves, who are called 
-to the guardianship and sovereignty of your country, can 
these considerations be addressed ? Joint laborers, as we 
are, in the work of independence, duty impels us to admon- 
ish you of the crisis. We possess no funds which do not 
originate with you. We can command no levies which are 
not raised under your acts. How shall we acquit ourselves 
to the world, should peace, towards the acquisition of which 
so illustrious a point hath been gained, now escape our em- 
braces, by the inadequacy of our army, or our treasure ? 
An appeal to this exposition of our affairs will demonstrate 
our watchfulness of your happiness. 

We conjure you to remember what confidence we shall 
establish in the breast of that great monarch who has be- 
come a party in oar political welfare, by a bold, energetic 
display of our ability. 

We, therefore, trust in your attention and zeal to avail 
yourselves, at this important crisis, of the glorious advan- 
tages lately obtained, by a full compliance with these requisi- 
tions of men and money which we have made to you, and 
the necessity of which hath been pointed out to us by the 
maturest consideration on the present circumstances of these 
United States. 



Ex. LXXVIIL— i2^rC/72iV^ OF BRITISH FUGITIVES ADVOCATED. 

Speech in Congress, 1782. 

PATRICK HENRY. 

I VENTURE to prophesy that there are now those living 
who will see this favored land amongst the most powerful 
on earth — able. Sir, to take care of herself, without resorting 
to that policy, which is always so dangerous, though some- 
times unavoidable, of calling in foreign aid. Yes, Sir, they 
will see her great in arts and arms — ^her golden harvests 
waving over fields of immeasurable extent, her commerce 
penetrating the most distant seas, and her cannon silencing 
the vain boasts of those who now proudly affect to rule the 
waves. But, Sir, you must have men — you can not get along 
without them. Those heavy forests of valuable timber, un- 
der which your lands are groaning^ must be cleared away. 



128 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE. 

Those vast riclies wMcli cover the face of your soil, as well 
as those that lie hid in its bosom, are to be developed and 
gathered only by the skill and enterprise of men. Your 
timber, Sir, must be worked up into ships, to transport the 
productions of the soil from which it has been cleared. 
Then, you must have commercial men and commercial capi- 
tal, to take off your productions, and find the best markets 
for them abroad. Your great want. Sir, is the want of men ; 
and these yoU must have, and will have speedily, if you are 
wise. 

Do you ask how you are to get them ? Open your doors. 
Sir, and they will come in! The population of the Old 
World is full to overflowing. That population is ground, 
too, by the oppressions of the governments under which they 
live. Sir, they are already standing on tip-toe on their native 
shores, and looking to your coasts with a wistful and longing 
eye. They see here a land blessed with natural and political 
advantages, which are not equalled by those of any other 
country upon earth ; a land on which a gracious Providence 
hath emptied the horn of abundance — a land over which 
Peace hath now stretched forth her white wings, and where 
Content and Plenty lie down at every door. 

Sir, they see something still more attractive than all this. 
They see a land in which Liberty hath taken up her abode — 
that Liberty whom they had considered as a fabled goddess, 
existing only in the fancies of poets. They see her here a 
real divinity — her altars rising on every hand, throughout 
these happy States ; her glories chanted by three millions of 
tongues, and the whole region smiling under her blessed in- 
fluence. Sir, let but this, our celestial goddess. Liberty, 
stretch forth her fair hand toward the people of the Old 
World — tell them to come, and bid them welcome — and you 
will see them pouring in from the ISTorth, from the South, 
from the East, and-^rom the West. Your wildernesses will 
be cleared and settled, your deserts will smile, your ranks 
will be filled, and you will soon be in a condition to defy the 
power of any adversary. 

But gentlemen object to any accession from Great Brit- 
ain, and particularly to the return of the British refugees. 
Sir, I feel no objection to the return of these deluded people. 
They have, to be sure, mistaken their own interests most 
wofully ; and most wofully have they suffered the punishment 
due to their offences. But the relations which we bear to 
them, and to their native country, are now changed. Their 



ELECTION SEEMON. 129 

King hatli acknowledged our independence ; the quarrel is 
over, peace hatli returned and found us a free people. Let 
us have the magnanimity, Sir, to lay aside our antipathies 
and prejudices, and consider the subject in a political light. 

Those are an enterprising, moneyed people. They will 
be serviceable in taking off the surplus produce of our lands, 
and supplying us with necessaries, during the infant state of 
our manufactures. Even if they be inimical, in point of 
feeling and principle, I can see no objection, in a political 
view, in making them tributary to our advantage. And, as 
I have no prejudices to prevent my making this use of them, 
so, Sir, I have no fear of any mischief that they can do us. 
Afraid of them / What, Sir, shaM we, who have laid the 
proud British lion at our feet, now be afraid of his whelps ? 



Ex. -LXMK.— ELECTION SERMON. 

Delivered 'before the Connecticut Legislature, May, 1783. 

DR. STILES.* 

While we render our supreme honors to the Most High, 
the God of armies, let us recollect, with affectionate honor, 
the bold and brave sons of freedom, who willingly offered 
themselves, and bled in the defence of their country. Our 
fellow-citizens, the officers and soldiers of the patriot army, 
who, with other gallant commanders and brave seamen of 
the American navy, have heroically fought by sea and by 
land, merit of their once bleeding but now triumphant coun- 
try, laurels, crowns, rewards, and the highest honors. Never 
was the profession of arms used with more glory, or in a bet- 
ter cause, since the days of Joshua the son of Nun. 

O Washington ! how do I love thy name ! how often 
have I adored and blessed thy God, for creating and forming 
thee, the great ornament of human kind ! Upheld and pro- 
tected by the Omnipotent, by the Lord of Hosts, thou hast 
been sustained and carried through one of the most arduous 
and important wars in all history. The world and posterity 
will, with admiration, contemplate thy deliberate, cool, and 
stable judgment, thy virtues, thy valor and heroic achieve- 
ments, as far surpassing those of Cyrus, whom the world 

* President of Yale College. • 
6* 



130 PATEIOTIC ELOQUENCE. 

loved and adored. The sound of thy fame shall go out into 
all the earth, and extend to distant ages. Thou hast con- 
vinced the world of the beauty of virtue — for in thee this 
beauty shines with distinguished lustre. There is a glory in 
thy disinterested benevolence, which the greatest characters 
would purchase, if possible, at the expense of worlds, and 
which may indeed excite their emulation, but can not be felt 
by the venal great— those who think everything, even virtue 
and true glory, may be bought and sold, and trace our every 
action to motives terminating in self — 

" Find Virtue local, all relation scorn, 
See all in self, and but for self be born." 

But thou, O Washington! forgottest thyself when thou 
lovedst thy bleeding country. Not all the gold of Ophir, 
nor a world filled with rubies and diamonds, could affect or 
purchase the sublime and noble feelings of thy heart in that 
single self-moved act, when thou didst deliberately cast the 
die for the dubious, the very dubious alternative of a gibbet 
or a triumphal arch ! But, beloved, enshielded and blessed 
by the great Melchisedec, the king of righteousness as well 
as peace, thou hast triumphed gloriously. Such has been 
thy military wisdom in the struggles of this arduous conflict, 
such the noble rectitude of thy character; something is 
there so singularly glorious and venerable thrown by Heaven 
about thee, that not only does thy country love thee, but our 
very enemies stop the madness of their lire in full volley, 
stop the illiberality of their slander, at thy name, as if re- 
buked from Heaven with "Touch not mine anointed, and 
do my Heeo no harm." Thy fame is of sweeter perfume 
than Arabian spices in the gardens of Persia. A Baron de 
Steuben shall waft its fragrance to the monarch of Prussia — 
a Marquis de La Fayette shall bear it to a much greater 
monarch, and diffuse thy renown throughout Europe. Listen- 
ing angels shall catch the odor, waft it to heaven, and per- 
fume the universe. 



ADDRESS. 131 



Ex. LXXX.—AI)DBBS8 



To tlie Officers of the Army on an insidious attempt to seduce tiiem from their allegiance 
to their country, in 1783. 

GEN. WASHINGTON.* 

Gentlemen : If my conduct heretofore lias not evinced 
to you that I have been a faithful friend to the army, my 
declaration of it at this time would be equally unavailing 
and improper. But as I was among the first who embarked 
in the cause of our common country, as I have never left 
your side for one moment but when called from you on pub- 
lic duty ; as I have been the constant companion and witness 
of your distresses, and not among the last to feel and ac- 
knowledge your merits ; as I have ever considered my own 
military reputation as inseparably connected with that of 
the army, and my heart has ever expanded with joy when 
I heard its praises, and my indignation has arisen when the 
mouth of detraction has been opened against it, it can scarce- 
ly be supposed, at this last stage of the war, that I am indif- 
ferent to its interests. 

With respect to the advice given by the author, to sus- 
pect the man who shall recommend longer moderation and 
forbearance, I spurn it, as every man, who regards that liber- 
ty, and reveres that justice for which we contend, undoubt- 
edly must ; for if a man is to be precluded from offering his 
sentiments on a matter which may involve the destiny of 
our country, reason is of no use to us. I cannot, in justice 
to my own belief, conclude this address without giving it as 

* Towards the close of the war, great dissatisfaction arose among the offi- 
cers of the army on the subject of their pay, and these discontents being art- 
fully inflamed by interested persons, a meeting was called to consider their 
grievances, which might have resulted in open mutiny had not Washington's 
wise and conciliatory measures prevented. He denoimced the anonymous 
call for a meeting as irregular, but appointed a meeting himself, for an earlier 
day, at which the matter should be considered. The officers being assembled 
at this time, he entered the room, with the above address in his hand, prepar- 
ed to read to them. As he looked around upon his companions in arms, his 
feelings overcame him, his eyes grew dim, and he could not see to read his 
notes. Recovering himself, he took his glasses from his pocket, and said 
quietly, " I have grown gray in your service, and now I am growing blind, 
but I never doubted the justice of my country, or its gratitude." He then 
read his address ; no reply was made to it, but, after he had left the room, res- 
olutions were passed which entirely counteracted the effect of the mutinous 
conspiracy, and shortly afterward tlie news of a glorious peace get the matter 
permanently at rest 



132 PATEIOTIC ELOQUENCE. 

my decided opinion, that Congress entertains an exalted 
sentiment of the services of the army, and, from a full con- 
viction of its merits and sufferings, will do it complete jus- 
tice: that their endeavors to discover and establish funds 
have been unwearied, and that they will never cease until 
they have succeeded. 

Why should we distrust them ? And why, in consequence 
of that distrust, adopt measures which will cast a shade over 
that glory which has been so justly acquired, and tarnish the 
reputation of an army which has been celebrated throughout 
all Europe for its fortitude and patriotism ? 

While I pledge myself in the most unequivocal manner, 
to exert whatever ability I am possessed of in your favor, let 
me entreat you, gentlemen, on your part, not to take any 
measures which, viewed in the calm light of reason, will les- 
sen the dignity and sully the gloiy you have hitherto main- 
tained. Let me request you to rely on i\iQ plighted faith of 
your country — to place a full confidence in the purity of the 
mtentions of Congress — and to assure yourselves that they 
will adopt the most effectual measures in their power to ren- 
der ample justice to you, for your faithful and meritorious 
services. 

By thus determining and thus acting, you will pursue the 
plain and direct road to the attainment of your wishes. You 
will give one more proof of unexampled patriotism and patient 
virtue, rising superior to the pressure of the most complica- 
ted sufferings ; and you will, by the dignity of your conduct, 
afford occasion for posterity to say, when speaking of the 
glorious example you have exhibited to mankind, " Had this 
day been wanting, the world would never have seen the last 
stage of perfection to which Human nature is capable of at- 
taining." 



Ex. LXXXI.— 6>i\r DISBANDING THE AEMY—118S. 

DAVID HTJMPHREYS.* 

Ye brave Columbian bands ! a long farewell ! 
Well have ye fought for freedom — nobly done 

* Col. Humphreys served during the Revolutionary war, principally in the 
capacity of aid to different generals. At the close of the war he entered the 



NATIOJS'AL DEPEJS^DENCE UPON GOD. 133 

Your martial task ; the meed immortal won ; 
And Time's last records shall yonr triumphs tell. 

Once friendship made their cup of sufferings sweet — 
The dregs how bitter, now those bands must part ! 

Ah ! never, never more on earth to meet ; 
Distilled from gall that inundates the heart, 
What tears from heroes' eyes are seen to start ! 

Ye, too, farewell, who fell in fields of gore, 
And changed tempestuous toil for rest serene; 

Soon shall we join you on that peaceful shore, 
(Though gulfs unmeasured darkly roll between,) 
Thither by death tides borne, as ye full soon have been. 



Ex. JjTLTli.--itational dependence upon god. 

Speech in the Convention for framing the Constitution, 1 787. 

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 

Me. Peesident : The small progress we tave made after 
four or five weeks' close attendance and continual reasonings 
with each other — our different sentiments on almost every 
question, several of the last producing as many "noes as ayes 
— is, methinks, a melancholy proof of the imperfection of the 
human understanding. We indeed seem to feel our own 
want of political wisdom, and we have been running about 
in search of it. We have gone back to ancient history for 
models of government, and examined the different forms of 
those republics which, having been formed with the seeds 
of their own dissolution, now no longer exist. And we have 
viewed modern states all around Europe, but found none 
of their constitutions suitable to our circumstances. 

In this situation of this Assembly, groping in the dark to 
find political truth, and scarcely able to distinguish it when 
presented to us, ho^y has it happened,- Sir, that we have not 
hitherto once thought of humbly applying to the Father 
of Light, to illuminate our understandings ? In the begin- 

diplomatic service, being appointed successively Secretary of Legation at 
Paris, Ambassador to Portugal, and Minister Plenipotentiary to Spain. Amidst 
his various duties he found time for literary composition, and left several 
poems, of which the present one is a very pleasing. spechnen. 



134 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE. 

ning of the contest with Great Britain, when we were sen- 
sible of danger, we had daily prayer in this room for the 
Divine protection. Our prayers. Sir, were heard, and they 
were graciously answered. All of us who were engaged 
in the struggle must have observed frequent instances of a 
superintending Providence in our favor. To that kind Prov- 
idence we owe this happy opportunity of consulting in peace 
on the means of establishing our future national felicity. 
And have we now forgotten that powerful Friend ? or do we 
imagine that we no longer need his assistance ? I have lived, 
Sir, a long time, and the longer I live the more convincing 
proofs I see of this truth — that God governs in the affairs of 
men. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without 
his notice, is it possible that an empire can rise without his 
aid? We have been assured. Sir, in the sacred writings, 
that " except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that 
build it." I firmly believe this ; and I also believe that with- 
out His concurring aid, we shall succeed in this political 
building no better than the builders of Babel. We 
shall be divided by our little partial local interests ; our 
projects will be confounded, and we ourselves shall become 
a reproach and a by-word down to future ages. And what 
is worse, mankind may hereafter, from this unfortunate in- 
stance, despair *of establishing governments by human wis- 
dom, and leave "it to chance, war and conquest. 

I therefore beg leave to move — that henceforth pi:ayers 
imploring the assistance of Heaven, and its blessings upon 
our deliberations, be held in this assembly every morning be- 
fore we proceed to business, and that one" or more of the 
clergy of this city be requested to officiate in that service.* 



Ex. LXXXIII.— r^^ FEDERAL CONSTITUTION. 

Speecli in Convention, 1787. 

JAMES WILSON.f 

Need I call to your remembrance, my fellow citizens, the 
contrasted scenes of which we have been witnesses ? On the 

* Strange to say, the motion was not adopted, because, in the words of a 
writer of the time, " the members of the Convention, with three or four ex- 
ceptions, thought prayer unnecessary." We cannot suppose Washington to 
have sided with the majority ! 

f It is scarcely possible for us, with whom the Constitution has become a 
household word, to imagine tha long and laborious consideration, the stormy 



THE FEDEEAL CONSTITUTION. 135 

glorious conclusion of our conflict with Britain, what high 
expectations were formed concerning us by others ! What 
high expectations did we form concerning ourselves ! Have 
those expectations been realized ? ISTo ! What has been the 
cause? Did our citizens lose their perseverance and magna- 
nimity? No. Did they become insensible of resentment 
and indignation at any high-handed attempt that might have 
been made to injure and enslave them ? No. What then has 
been the cause ? The truth is, we dreaded danger only on 
one side : this we manfully repelled. But on another side, 
danger, not less formidable, but more insidious, stole in upon 
us ; and our unsuspicious tempers were not sufficiently atten- 
tive, either to its approach or to its operations. Those whom 
foreign strength could not overpower, have well nigh become 
the victims of internal anarchy. 

When we had baffled all the menaces of foreign power, we 
neglected to establish among ourselves a government that 
would ensure domestic vigor and stability. What was the 
consequence ? The commencement of peace was the com- 
mencement of every disgrace and distress that could befall 
a people in a peaceful state. Devoid of national power, we 
could not prohibit the extravagance of our importations, nor 
could we derive a revenue from their excess. Devoid of na- 
tional importance, we could not procure for our exports a 
tolerable sale at foreign markets. Devoid of national credit, 
we saw our public securities melt in the hands of the holders, 
like snow before the sun. Devoid of national dignity, we 
could not, in some instances, perform our treaties on our 
parts ; and in other instances we could neither obtain nor 
compel the performance of them on that of others. Devoid 
of national energy, we could not carry into execution our 
own resolutions, decisions, nor laws. 

But the years of languor are past. We have felt the dis- 
honor with which we have been covered ; we have seen the 
destruction with which we have been threatened. Under 
these impressions, and with these views, was the late Con- 
vention appointed ; and under these impressions, and with 
these views, the late Convention met. 

debates, the variety of conflicting opinions, which combined to mould it into 
its present form. It was a matter of compromises, scarcely any one consider- 
ing it absolutely perfect, yet each willing to yield his judgment on minor 
points, for the sake of re-estabhshing the government, then fast drifting into 
ruin under the inefficient " Articles of Confederation." But few of the speech- 
es dehvered during this period have come down to us, the Convention holding 
its deliberations under injunctions of the strictest secrecy. 



136 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE. 

We now see the great end which they proposed to accom- 
plish. It was to frame, for the consideration of their con- 
stituents, our federal and national constitution — a constitu- 
tion that would produce the advantages of good, and pre- 
vent the inconveniences of bad government — a constitution 
whose beneficent energy would pervade the whole Union, 
and bind and embrace the interests of every part — a con- 
stitution that would ensure peace, freedom, and happiness to 
the States and people of America. 



Ex. 'LKSXlY.—THE FEDERAL CONSTITUTION. 

Speecli in Convention, 1787. 

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN.^ 



i 



Sir : I agree to this constitution with all its faults, — if 
they are such, — because I think a general government neces- 
sary for us, and there is no form of government but what 
may be a blessing to the people, if well administered ; and I 
believe, further, this is likely to be well administered for a 
course of years, and can only end in despotism, as other 
forms have done before it, when the people shall become so 
corrupted as to need despotic government, being incapable 
of any other. I doubt, too, whether any other Convention 
we can obtain may be able to make a better constitution. 
For, when you assemble a number of men, to have the ad- 
vantage of their joint wisdom, you inevitably assemble with 
those men all their prejudices, their passions, their errors of 
opinion, their local interests, and their selfish vices. From 
such an assembly, can a perfect production be expected ? It, 
therefore, astonishes me. Sir, to find this system approaching so 
near to perfection as it does, and I think it will astonish 
our enemies, who are awaiting with confidence to hear that 

* It must have been an affecting sight to see the philosopher and statesman, 
at the age of eighty-one years, still taking an active part in the councils of the 
nation, and always lending his voice and influence to the side of conciliation 
and liberality. His aim was to harmonize conflicting opinions, and to be satis- 
fied with the best result that could be attained, on the whole, confident that it 
was impossible ever to bring a large body of men into perfect unanimity. He 
lived to see the new system of government in successful operation, and died 
in 1790, the second year of Washington's presidency. 



THE FEDEEAL CONSTITUTION. 137 

our counsels are confounded, like those of the builders of 
Babel, and that our States are on the point of separation, 
only to meet hereafter for the purpose of cutting one anoth- 
er's throats. 

Thus I consent, Sir, to this Constitution, because I ex- 
pect no better, and because I am not sure that this is not 
the best. The opinion I have had of its errors I sacrifice 
to the public good. I have never whispered a syllable of 
them abroad. Within these walls they were born, and here 
they shall die. If every one of us, in returning to his con- 
stituents, were to report the objections he has had to it, 
and endeavor to gain partisans in support of them, v/e 
might prevent its being generally received, and thereby 
lose all the salutary effects and great advantages resulting 
naturally in our favor among foreign nations, as well as 
among ourselves, from our real or apparent unanimity. 

Much of the strength and efficacy of any government, 
in procuring and securing happiness to the people, depends 
on opinion, on the general opinion of the goodness of that 
government, as well as of the wisdom and integrity of its 
governors. I hope, therefore, that for our own sakes, as a 
part of the people, and for the sake of our posterity, we 
shall act heartily and unanimously in recommending this 
constitution, wherever our influence may extend, and turn 
our future thoughts and endeavors to the means of having 
it well administered. 



I1X.LXSXY—THJS FUBEEAL CONSTITUTION: 

Speech in Convention, June, 1788, 

EDMUND RANDOLPH.* 

Let us consider the definition of a republican govern- 
ment, as laid down by a highly esteemed political philoso- 

* This debate between Kandolpli and Patrick Henry did not take place 
at the time of framing the Constitution, but in the following year, when a 
Convention was held in Virginia, (as in the other states,) for the purpose of 
ratifying it. Mr. Eandolph had voted against the Constitution in the original 
Convention, but yielded his opinion in deference to what he believed to be the 
public good. He was afterwards Governor of Virginia, Attorney-General of 
the United States, and Secretary of State. 



138 PATEIOTIC ELOQUENCE. 

pher. Montesquieu, so celebrated among politicians, says, 
" that a republican government is that in which the 
body, or only a part of the people, is possessed of the su- 
preme power ; a monarchical, that in which a single person 
governs by fixed and established laws ; a despotic govern- 
ment, that in which a single person, without law and with- 
out rule, directs everything by his own will and caprice." 
This great man has not distinguished a republican govern- 
ment from a monarchy by the extent of its boundaries, but 
by the nature of its principles. 

When laws are made with integrity, and executed with 
wisdom, the question is, whether a great extent of country 
will tend to abridge the liberty of the people. If defensive 
force be necessary in proportion to the extent of country, I 
conceive that in a judiciously constructed government, be 
the country ever so extensive, the inhabitants will be 
proportionably numerous and able to defend it. Extent of 
country, in my conception, ought to be no bar to the adop- 
tion of a good government. 'No extent on earth seems to 
me to be too great, provided the laws be wisely made and 
executed. The principles of representation and responsibility 
may pervade a large as well as a small territory ; and tyranny 
is as easily introduced into a small as into a large district. 
If it be answered, that some of the most illustrious and dis- 
tinguished authors are of a contrary opinion, I reply, that 
authority has no weight with me until I am convinced; 
that not the dignity of names, but the force of reasoning, 
gains my assent. 

I have labored for the continuance of the Union — the 
rock of our salvation. I believe that as surely as there is a 
God in heaven, our safety, our political happiness and ex- 
istence depend on the union of the States ; and that without 
that union, the people of this and the other States will under- 
go all the unspeakable calamities which discord, faction, tur- 
bulence, war and bloodshed have produced in other coun- 
tries. The American spirit ought to be mixed with American 
pride — pride to see the Union magnificently triumph. Let 
that glorious pride which once defied the British thunder, 
re-animate you again ! Let it not be recorded of Americans, 
that after having performed the most gallant exploits 
— after having overcome the most astonivshing difficulties — 
after having gained the admiration of the world by their in- 
comparable valor and policy, they lost their acquired reputa- 
tion by their own indiscretion. Let no future historian in- 



THE FEDERAL CONSTITUTION. 139 

form posterity that they wanted wisdom and virtue to concur 
in any regular efficient government. 

Should any writer, doomed to so disagreeable a task, feel 
the indignation of an honest historian, he would reprehend 
and recriminate our folly, with equal severity and justice. 
Catch the present moment, seize it with avidity and eager- 
ness, for it may be lost, never to be regained. If the union 
be now abandoned, I fear it will remain so forever. I believe 
gentlemen are sincere in their opposition, and actuated by 
pure motives ; but when I maturely weigh the advantages 
of the union, and dreadful consequences of its dissolution ; 
when I see safety on my right, and destruction on my left ; 
when I behold respectability and happiness acquired by the 
one, but annihilation by the other, I can not hesitate to de- 
cide in favor of the former. 



Ex. LXXXVL— r^JB' FEDERAL CONSTITUTION, 

Speech, in Convention, June, 1788. 

PATRICK HENRY. 

The honorable gentleman. Sir, has said a great deal about 
the figure we cut in the eyes of foreign nations, and the con- 
temptible aspect in which we must be viewed by France and 
Holland ; all of which, according to the notes I have taken, 
he attributes to the imbecility of our government. It ap- 
pears, then, that an opinion has gone forth that we are a 
contemptible people. The time has been. Sir, when we were 
thought otherwise. Under this very same despised govern- 
ment, we commanded the respect of all Europe ; wherefore 
are we now reckoned otherwise ? Why, because the Ameri- 
can spirit has flown from us, and gone to regions where it 
never was expected. 

It has gone to the people of France in search of a splen- 
did government — a strong and energetic government. Shall 
we imitate the example of those nations who have fallen from 
a simple to a splendid government ? Are those nations so 
very worthy of our imitation ? What can make an adequate 
satisfaction to them for the evils they have suflered in pur- 
chasing such a government at the loss of their liber- 



140 PATEIOTIC ELOQUENCE. 

ty? K we admit this consolidated government, it can 
be for no other reason but because we like a great and gor- 
geous one. In some way or other, it seems we tnust have a 
great and mighty empire ; we must have an anny ; we must 
have a navy ; we must have a number of fine things. When 
the American spirit was in its youth the language of Ameri- 
ca was different ; liberty, Sir, liberty was then the primary 
object. We then acted as they might be expected to act, 
who are descended from a people that founded their gov- 
ernment on liberty. Our glorious forefathers of Great 
Britain made liberty the foundation of everything. That 
country is become a great, a mighty and a splendid nation ; 
not because its government is strong and energetic, but be- 
cause liberty is its direct end and its foundation. We de- 
rived the spirit of liberty from our British ancestors ; by that 
spirit we have triumphed over every difficulty. 

But now. Sir, the American spirit, assisted by the ropes 
and chains of consolidation, is about to convert this country 
into a powerful and mighty empire. If you make the citizens 
of this country agree to become the subjects of one great 
consolidated " Empiee of Ameeica," your government will 
not have sufficient energy to keep them together. Such a 
government is incompatible with the genius of republicanism. 



Ex. LXXXYH.— r^^ FEDERAL CONSTITUTION, 
Speech in Convention, June, 1788. 

PATRICK HENRY. 

The gentleman has said a great deal about disunion and 
of the dangers that are to arise from it — when we are on the 
subject of union and dangers, let me ask him how will his 
present doctrine hold with what has hapj^ened. Is it con- 
sistent with that noble and disinterested conduct which he 
displayed on a former occasion ? Did he not tell us that he 
withheld his signature? Where, then, were the dangers 
that now appear to him so formidable ? He saw all Ameri- 
ca eagerly confident that the result of their deliberations 
would remove their distresses. He saw all America acting 
under the impulses of hope, expectation and anxiety, arising 
from their situation, and their partiality for the members of 



THE FEDKBAI. CONSTITUTION, 141 

that convention; yet his enlightened mind, knowing that 
system to be defectiTe, magnanimonslj and nobly refci^ed its 
approbation. 

He was not led by the iliumined — the iUnstrions few. 
He was actuated by the dictates of his own jndgment ; and 
a better judgment than I can form. He did not stand out 
of the way of information. He must have been possessed of 
every intelligence, TVbat alteration has a few months brqjight 
about ■? The internal difference between right and wrong 
does lit uiictnate: that is im mutable. I ask this question 
as a public man, and out of no particular yiew. I wish as 
such, to consult every sonrce of information, in order to form 
my judgment on so awfol a question. I had the highest re- 
spect for the honorable gentleman's abilities. I considered 
his opinion as a great authority. He taught me, Sir, in spite 
of the approbation of that great federal convention, to doubt 
the propriety of that system. When I found my honor- 
able fiiend in the nimiber of those who doubted, I began to 
doubt also. I coincided with him in opinion. I shall be a 
stanch and faithful disciple of his, I applaud that magnanim- 
ity which led him to withhold his signature. If he thinks 
now differently, he is as firee as I am.^ Such is my situation 
that, as a poorindiTidual, Hook for information everywhere. 

This government is so new, Sir, that it wants a name. I 
wish its other novelties were as harmless as this. He told 
us we had an Am^erican dictator in ITSl. TTe never had an 
American preadent. In making a dictator we follow the ex- 
ample of the most glorious, magnanimous and skilful nations. 
In great dangers this power has been given. Rome has 
famished us with an illustrious example. America wanted 
a person worthy of that trust — she looked to Virginia for 
him, and she foimd him there, TTe gave a dictatorial power 
to hands that used it gloriously; and which was rendered 
still more glorious by surrendering it up. 

We have seen the sons of Cincinnatus, without splendid 
magnificence or parade, going, with the genius of their great 
progenitor, to the plough. Men who served their cotmtry 
without mining it — ^men who had served it to the destruction 
of their private patrimonies — their cotmtry owing them amaz- 
ing amotmts, for the payment of which no adequate provi- 
sion was then made. We have seen such men throw pros- 
trate their arms at yom* feet. They did not caU for those 
emoluments which ambition presents to sordid imaginations. 
The soldiers, who were able to command everything, instead 



142 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE. 

of trampling on those laws which they were instituted to 
defend, most strictly obeyed them. The hands of justice 
have not been laid on a single American soldier. 

Perhaps I shall be told that I have gone through the 
regions of fancy — that I deal in noisy declamation, and 
mighty professions of patriotism. Gentlemen are welcome 
to their opinions ; but I look upon that paper as containing 
the most fatal plan that ingenuity can devise for enslaving 
a free people. If such be your rage for novelty, take it — in- 
dulge yourselves — but you never shall have my consent. 
My sentiments may appear extravagant, but I can tell you, 
that a number of my fellow-citizens have kindred sentiments 
— and I am anxious, if my country should come into the 
hands of tyranny, to exculpate myself from being in any de- 
gree the cause of it ; and to exert my faculties to the utmost 
to extricate her. Whether I am gratified or not in my be- 
loved form of government, I consider that the more she is 
plunged into distress, the more it is my duty to combat for 
her. Whatever be the result, I shall wait with patience ; 
perhaps the day may come, when an opportunity shall offer 
to exert myself in her cause. 



Ex. LXXXYllL—THE FEDERAL CONSTITUTION. 

Speech, in Convention, June, 1788. 

EDMUND RANDOLPH. 

Mr. Chairman : I am a child of the Revolution. At an 
early age, and when I most wanted it, my country took me 
under its protection; and by a succession of favors and 
honors, prevented even my most ardent wishes. For those 
favors, I feel the highest gratitude. My attachment to my 
country is, as it ought to be, unbounded, and her felicity is 
the most fervent prayer of my heart. Conscious of having 
exerted my faculties to the utmost in her behalf, if I have 
not succeeded in securing the esteem of my countrymen, I 
shall derive abundant consolation from the rectitude of my 
intentions. 

Honors, when compared to the satisfaction arising from 
a conscious independence of spirit and rectitude of conduct, 
are as nothing. The unwearied study of my life shall be to 



THE FEDERAL CONSTITUTION. 143 

promote the happiness of America. As a citizen, ambition 
and popularity are, at this time of day, no objects with me. 
I can truly declare to the whole world, that in the part I 
take in this very important question, I am actuated by no 
other motive than a regard for what I conceive to be the 
best interests of these States. I can also, with equal sinceri- 
ty, declare, that I would join heart and hand in rejecting 
this system, were I not convinced that it will promote our 
happiness ; but having a strong conviction on my mind, at 
this time, that by a disunion we shall throw away all those 
blessings we have so resolutely fought for, and that a rejec- 
tion of the constitution will occasion disunion — I am de- 
termined to discharge the obligation I owe to my country, 
by voting for its adoption. 

We are told that the report of dangers is false. The cry 
of peace. Sir, is false ; what they call peace is but a deceit- 
ful calm. The tempest lowers over you— look around — 
wherever you cast your eyes you see danger. Recollect the 
extreme debility of our merely nominal government. We 
are. Sir, indeed we are, too despicable to be regarded by 
foreign nations. Without adequate powers vested in Con- 
gress, America can not be respectable in the eyes of other 
nations. Congress, Sir, ought to be fully vested with powers 
to support the Union^ — protect the interest of the United 
States — ^maintain their commerce— and defend them from 
external invasions and insults, and internal insurrections ; 
to maintain justice, and promote harmony and public tran- 
quillity among the States. 

A government not vested with these powers will ever be 
found unable to make us happy or respectable ; how far the 
Confederation is different from such a government, is known 
to all America. Instead of being able to cherish and pro- 
tect the States, it has been unable to defend itself against 
the encroachments made upon it by them. What are the 
powers of Congress? They have full authority to recom- 
mend what they please ; this recommendatory power re- 
duces them to the condition of poor supplicants. Is this 
the dignified language of the members of the American 
Congress ; — " May it please your high-mightinesses of Virgin- 
ia to pay your just proportionate quota of our national debt ; 
we humbly supplicate you that it may please you to comply 
with your federal duties ! We implore, we beg, your obe- 
dience ! " And is not this. Sir, a very fair representation of 
the powers of Congress ? Their opinions are of no validity, 



144 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE. 

• 

when counteracted by the States. Their authority to recom- 
mend is a mere mockery of government. 

If anything were wanting to complete this farce, it 
would be that a resolution of Virginia, and of the other 
legislatures, should be necessary to confirm and render valid 
the acts of Congress. This would at once develop the 
weakness an<J inefficiency of the general government, to all 
the world. But, in fact, its imbecility is now nearly the 
same as if such acts were formally requisite. An act of 
Virginia, controverting a resolution of Congress, would cer- 
tainly prevail. I therefore conclude, that the Confederation 
is too defective to be rendered tolerable even by correction. 
Let us take our farewell of it, with reverential respect, as an 
old benefactor. It is gone, whether this House says so, or 
not. It has perished, Sir, by its own weaki^ess. 



Ex. U^XnX.— DEFINITION OF aOVFRNMENT. 

WM. GILMORE SIMMS. 

Governme'nt 
We hold to be the creature of our need. 
Having no power but where necessity 
Still, under guidance of the charter, gives it. 
Our taxes raised to meet our exigence. 
And not for waste or favorites. Our people 
Left free to share the commerce of the world, 
Without one needless barrier on their prows. 
Our industry at liberty for venture, 
]^ either abridged nor pampered ; and no calling 
Preferred before another, to the ruin 
Or wrong of either. These, Sir, are my doctrines ; 
They are the only doctrines which shall keep us 
From anarchy, and that worst peril yet, 
That threatens to dissever, in the tempest. 
That married harmony of hope with power 
That keeps our starry Union o'er the storm. 
And, in the sacred bond that links our fortunes, 
Makes us defy its thunders ! Thus in one. 
The foreign despot threatens us in vain. 
His ministers of state may fret to see us, 



IXAUGUKAL ADDRESS. 145 

Grasping the empires which they vainly covet, 
And stretching forth onr trident o'er the seas 
In rivalry with Britain. They may confine, 
But cannot chain us. Balances of power, 
Framed by corrupt and cunning monarchists, 
Weigh none of our possessions ; and the seasons 
That mark our mighty progress East and West, 
Show Europe's struggling millions fondly seeking 
The better shores and shelters that are ours. 



Ex. ^G.— INAUGURAL ADDRESS TO- BOTH HOUSES OF CON. 
GRESS, APRIL 30, ITSQ.* 

WASHINGTON. 

Amo:n-g the vicissitudes incident to life, no event could 
have filled me with greater anxieties than that of which the 
notification was transmitted by your order, and received on 
the 14th day of the present month. 

On the one hand, I was summoned by my country, whose 
voice I can never hear but with veneration and love, from a 
retreat which I had chosen Avith the fondest predilection, and, 
in my flattering hopes, with an immutable decision, as the 
asylum of my declining years ; a retreat which was rendered 
eveiy day more necessary as well as more dear to me, by the 
addition of habit to inclination, and of frequent interruptions 
in my health to the gradual waste committed on it by time. 
On the other hand, the magnitude and difficulty of the trust 
to which the voice of my country called me, being sufficient 
to awaken in the wisest and most experienced of her citizens 
a distrustful scrutiny into his qualifications, could not but over- 
whelm with despondence one who, inheriting inferior endow- 
ments from N'ature, and unpractised in the duties of civil ad- 

* The regret expressed by Washington on this occasion at being recalled 
from his chosen retirement, was no idle form of words, but an utterance of 
sentiments which the whole tenor of his life, when relieved from the pressure 
of official business, showed to have been sincere. He preferred the fields and 
groves of Mount Yernon to any presidential mansion, with its attendant cares 
and labors ; but he did not feel at liberty to disregard the call of his people, 
and no sacrifice was too great for him to endure for their good. He was the 
only President whose election has been unanimous. 

7 



146 PATEIOTIC ELOQUENCE. 

ministration, ought to be peculiarly conscious of his own de- 
ficiencies. 

In this conflict of emotions, all I dare aver is, that it has 
been my faithful study to collect my duty from a just appre- 
ciation of every circumstance by which it might be affected. 
All I dare hope is, that if, in executing this task, I have been 
too much swayed by a grateful remembrance of former in- 
stances, or by an affectionate sensibility to this transcendent 
proof of the confidence of my fellow-citizens, and have thence 
too little consulted my incapacity as well as disinclination 
for the weighty and untried cares before me, — my error will 
be palliated by the motives which misled me, and its conse- 
quences be judged by my country wdth some share of the 
partiality in which they originated. 

Such being the impressions under which I have, in obedi- 
ence to the public summons, repaired to the present station, 
it would be peculiarly improper to omit, in this first official 
act, my fervent supplications to that Almighty Being who 
rules over the universe, who presides in the councils of na- 
tions, whose providential aids can supply every human de- 
fect, that his benediction may consecrate to the liberties and 
happiness of the people of the United States a government 
instituted by themselves for these essential purposes, and 
may enable every instrument employed in its administration 
to execute with success the functions allotted to his charge. 
In tendering this homage to the great Author of every public 
and private good, I assure myself that it expresses your sen- 
timents not less than my own ; nor those of my fellow-citi- 
zens at large less than either. jSTo people can be bound to 
acknowledge and adore the invisible hand which conducts 
the affairs of men, more than the people of the United States. 
Every step by which they have advanced to the character of 
an independent nation, seems to have been distinguished by 
some token of providential agency. And, in the important 
revolution just accomplished in the system of their united 
government, the tranquil deliberations and voluntary consent 
of so many distinct communities, from which the event has 
resulted, can not be compared with the means by which most 
governments have been established, without some return of 
pious gratitude along with an humble anticipation of the fu- 
ture blessings which the past seem to presage. 

These reflections, arising out of the present crisis, have 
forced themselves too strongly on my mind to be suppressed. 
You will join with me, I trust, in thinking that there are 



WASHINGTON AS PEESIDENT. 147 

none under the influence of wliich the proceedings of a new 
and free government can more auspiciously commence. 

Having thus imparted to you my sentiments, as they 
have been awakened by the occasion which brings us to- 
gether, I shall take my present leave, but not without resort- 
ing once more to the benign Parent of the human race, in 
humble supplication, that as He has been pleased to favor 
the American people with opportunities for deliberating in 
perfect tranquillity, and dispositions for deciding with unpar- 
alleled unanimity on a form of government for thB security 
of their Union and the advancement of their happiness, so 
His divine blessing may be equally conspicuous in the en- 
larged views, the temperate consultations, and the wise 
measures, on which the success of this Government must 
depend. 



Ex. X.GI.— WASHINGTON AS PRESIDENT. 

Speech, in Parliament, 1794. 



CHARLES JAMES FOX. 



How infinitely superior must appear the spirit and prin- 
ciples of General Washington, in his late address to Congress, 
compared with the policy of modern European courts ! Il- 
lustrious man ! deriving honor less from the splendor of his 
situation than from the dignity of his mind ! Grateful to 
France for the assistance received from her in that great 
contest which secured the independence of America, he yet 
did not choose to give up the system of neutrality in her fa- 
vor. Having once laid down the line of conduct most proper 
to be pursued, not all the insults and provocations of the 
French minister could at all put him out of his way or change 
him from his purpose. It must, indeed create astonishment 
that, placed in circumstances so critical, and filling a station 
so conspicuous, the character of Washington should not once 
have been called in question ; that he should, in no one in- 
stance, have been accused either of improper insolence or of 
mean submission, in his transactions with foreign nations. 
It has been reserved for him to run the race of glory without 
experiencing the smallest interruption to the brilliancy of his 
career. The breath of censure has not dared to impeact the 



148 PATEIOTIC ELOQUENCE, 

purity of his conduct, nor the eye of envy to raise its malig- 
nant glance to the elevation of his virtues. Such has been 
the transcendent merit and the unparalleled fate of this illus- 
trious man ! 

How did he act when insulted by Genet ? * Did he con- 
sider it necessary to avenge himself for the misconduct or 
madness of an individual by involving a whole continent in 
the horrors of war ? ISTo ; he contented himself wit^ procur- 
ing satisfaction for the insult by causing Genet to be recalled ; 
and thus at once consulting his own dignity and the interests 
of his country. Happy Americans ! while the whirlwind flies 
over one quarter of the globe and spreads everywhere deso- 
lation, you remain protected from its baneful effects by your 
own virtues and the wisdom of your Government. Sepa- 
rated from Europe by an immense ocean, you feel not the 
effect of those prejudices and passions which convert the 
boasted seats of civilization into scenes of horror and blood- 
shed. You profit by the folly and madness of the contend- 
ing nations, and afford, in your more congenial clime, an 
asylum to those blessings and virtues which they wantonly 
contemn, or wickedly exclude from their bosom ! Cultivating 
the arts of peace under the influence of freedom, you ad- 
vance, by rapid strides, to opulence and distinction ; and if, 
by any accident, you should be compelled to take part in the 
present unhappy contest, — if you should find it necessary to 
avenge insult or repel injury, — the world will bear witness to 
the equity of your sentiments and the moderation of your 
views ; and the success of your arms will, no doubt, be pro- 
portioned to the justice of your cause. 

* Genet was minister from the French Revolutionary Government, and mis- 
used the privileges of his diplomatic station to enlist soldiers and fit out pri- 
vateers in this country to serve against England, in direct contravention of 
our treaty with that nation, which bound us to the strictest neutrality. He 
set the United States Government openly at defiance, continuing his practices 
in spite of repeated remonstrances, and caused a Jetter to be published from 
himself to the President, reflecting severely on the conduct of the latter. In 
this course of conduct he was upheld by a large party of French sympathizers, 
who wished for a war with England, but the Administration finally triumphed, 
and he was recalled in 1'794:. 



THE TOAST. 149 



Ex. Xdll.—THE TOAST. 



FRANCIS HOPKINSON. 



'Tis Washington's health, — fill a bumper around, 

For he is our glory and pride ; 
Our arms shall in battle with conquest be crowned, 

With virtue and him on our side. 

'Tis Washington's health — and cannons should roar. 
And trumpets the truth should proclaim ; 

There can not be found, search all the world o'er, 
His equal in virtue and fame. 

'Tis Washington's health — our hero to bless, 

May heaven look graciously down ; 
Oh long may he live, our glad hearts to possess, 

And freedom still call him her own. 



Ex. XCIIL— (9iV THE DANGER OF VIOLATING OUR TREATIES. 

Speecli in Congress, April, 1796. 

FISHER AMES.* 

On this theme my emotions are unutterable. If I could 
find words for them, if my powers bore any proportion to 
my zeal, I would swell my voice to such a note of remon- 
strance, it should reach every log-house beyond the moun- 
tains. I would say to the inhabitants, wake from your false 
security; your cruel dangers, your more cruel apprehensions 
are soon to be renewed ; the wounds, yet unhealed, are to be 

* Tlie treaty with Great Britain concluded by John Jay in 1794, was very 
unpopular with a part of the people, who considered its terms too favorable 
to England ; and a strong party arose in Congress, in favor of refusing to ful- 
fil its provisions. A long and excited debate ensued. Among the last speak- 
ers was Mr. Ames, Member of Congress from Massachusetts, and one of the 
most eloquent and influential of American statesmen, who urged strongly the 
duty and expediency of ratification. His speech, though uttered under the 
pressure of distressing illness, produced a thrilling effect, and silenced, if it 
did not convince, those who wished to break the national faith. The treaty 
was ratified, and the threatened war with England put off until the country 
was better able to sustain it. 



150 . PATEIOTIC ELOQUENCE. 

torn open again; in the daytime, your path through the 
woods will be ambushed ; the darkness of midnight will 
glitter with the blaze of your dwellings. You are a father 
— the blood of your sons shall fatten your corn-field ; you 
are a mother — the war-whoop shall waken the sleep of the 
cradle.* 

On this subject, you need not suspect any deception on 
your feelings ; it is a spectacle of horror which can not be 
overdrawn. If you have nature in your hearts, they will 
speak a language compared with which all I have said or 
can say will be poor and frigid. 

Will it be whispered that the treaty has made me a new 
champion for the protection of the frontiers ? It is known 
that my voice, as well as vote, have been uniformly given in 
Conformity with the ideas I have expressed. Protection is 
the right of the frontiers ; it is our duty to give it. 

Who will accuse me of wandering out of the subject ? 
Who will say that I exaggerate the tendencies of our meas- 
ures ? Will any one answer by a sneer, that this is all idle 
preaching ? Will any one deny that we are bound, and I 
hope, to good purpose, by the most solemn sanctions of duty 
for the vote we give ? Are despots alone to be reproached 
for unfeeling indifierence to the tears and blood of their sub- 
jects ? Are republicans irresponsible ? Have the princi- 
ples upon which you ground the reproach of cabinets and 
kings, no practical influence, no binding force ? Are they 
merely themes of idle declamation, introduced to decorate the 
morality of a newspaper essay, or to furnish pretty topics of 
harangue from the windows of that state house ? I trust it 
is neither too presumptuous nor too late to ask. Can you put 
the dearest interest of society at risk, without guilt and with- 
out remorse ? 

It is vain to offer as an excuse, that public men are not to 
be reproached for the evils that may happen to ensue from 
their measures. That is very true, where they are unfore- 
seen or inevitable. Those I have depicted are not unfore- 
seen ; they are so far from inevitable, we are going to bring 
them into being by our vote ; we choose the consequences, 
and become as justly answerable for them, as for the meas- 
ures that we know will produce them. 

By rejecting the posts, we light the savage fires — we bind 

* The frontier posts, in case of a war with the British, would have been 
exposed to the ravages of the Indians, who were with difficulty restrained from 
hostilities even when both nations were at peace. 



SHALL WE BKEAK OUR FAITH ? 151 

the yictims. This day we undertake to render account to the 
widows and orphans whom our decision will make ; to the 
wretches that will be roasted at the stake ; to our country ; 
and I do not deem it too serious to say, to conscience and to 
God. We are answerable ; and if duty be anything more 
than a word of imposture, if conscience be not a bugbear, 
we are preparing to make ourselves as wretched as our coun- 
try. 

There is no mistake in this case, there can be none ; ex- 
perience has already been the prophet of events, and the 
cries of our future victims have already reached us. The 
western inhabitants are not a silent and uncomplaining sacri- 
fice. The voice of humanity issues from the shade of the 
wilderness ; it exclaims, that while one hand is held up to re- 
ject this treaty, the other grasps t\e tomahawk. It summons 
our imagination to the scenes that will open. It is no great 
efibrt of the imagination to conceive that events so near are 
already begun. I can fancy that I listen to the yells of sav- 
age vengeance and the shrieks of torture ; already they seem 
to sigh in the western wind ; already they mingle with every 
echo from the mountains. 



Ex. XGlY.—SirALL WE BREAK OUR FAITH? 

Speech in Congress, April, 1796. 



FISHER AMES. 



It would be strange that a subject which has roused in 
turn all the passions of the country, should be discussed 
without the interference of any of our own. We are men, 
and therefore not exempt from those passions ; as citizens and 
representatives, we feel the interest that must excite them. 
The hazard of great interest can not fail to agitate strong 
passions ; we are not disinterested ; it is impossible we should 
be dispassionate. The warmth of such feelings may becloud 
the judgment, and, for a time, pervert the understanding. 
But the public sensibility and our own has sharpened the 
spirit of inquiry, and given animation to the debate. The 
public attention has been quickened to mark the progress of 
the discussion, and its judgment, often hasty and erroneous 
on first impressions, has become solid and enlightened at last. 



152 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE. 

Our result will, I hope, on that account be the safer and more 
mature, as well as more accordant with that of the nation. 
The only constant agents in political affairs are the passions 
of men. Shall we complain of our nature ? Shall we say 
that man ought to have been made otherwise ? It is right 
already, because He, from whom we derive our nature, or^ 
dained it so ; and because, thus made and thus acting, the 
cause of truth and the public good is the more surely pro- 
moted. 

The question is : Shall we beeak the treaty ? 

The treaty is bad, fatally bad, is the cry. It sacrifices 
the interest, the honor, the independence of the United 
States, and the faith of our engagements to France. If we 
listen to the clamor of party intemperance, the evils are of 
a number not to be counted, and of a nature not to be borne, 
even in idea. The language of passion and exaggeration 
may silence that of reason in other places ; it has not done 
it here. The question here is, whether the treaty be really 
so very fatal as to oblige the nation to break its faith. I ad- 
mit that such a treaty ought not to have been made. I ad- 
mit that self-preservation is the first law of society, as well 
as of individuals. It would, perhaps, be deemed an abuse 
of terms to call that a treaty which violates such a principle. 
I content myself with pursuing the inquiry whether the na- 
ture of the compact be such as to justify om- refusal to carry 
it into effect. A treaty is the promise of a nation. Now, 
promises do not always bind him who makes them. 

The undecided point is, shall we break our faith ? And 
while our country, and enlightened Europe, await the issue 
with more than curiosity, we are employed to gather, piece- 
meal, and article by article, from the instrument, a justifica- 
tion for the deed by trivial calculations of commercial profit 
and loss. 'No government, not even a despotism, will break 
its faith without some pretext ; and it must be plausible — it 
must be such as will carry the public opinion along with it. 
Reasons of policy, if not of morality, dissuade even Turkey 
and Algiers from breaches of treaty in mere wantonness of 
perfidy, in open contempt of the reproaches of their subjects. 
Surely a popular government will not proceed more arbitrari- 
ly as it is more free, nor with less shame and scruple in pro- 
portion as it has better morals. It will not proceed against 
the faith of treaties at all unless the strong and decided sense 
of the nation shall pronounce, not simply that the treaty is not 
advantageous, but that it ought to be broken and annulled. 



HAIL COLUMBIA. 153 

And who, I would inquire, is hardy enough to pretend 
that the public voice demands the violation of the treaty ? 
The evidence of the sense of the great mass of the nation is 
often equivocal ; but when was it ever manifested with more 
energy and precision than at the present moment ? The 
voice of the people is raised against the measure of refusing 
the appropriations. If gentlemen should urge, nevertheless, 
that all the sound of alarm is a counterfeit expression of the 
sense of the public, I will proceed to other proofs. Is the 
treaty ruinous to our commerce ? What has blinded the 
eyes of the merchants and traders ? Surely they are not en- 
emies to trade, nor ignorant of their own interests. Their 
sense is not so liable to be mistaken as that of a nation, and 
they are almost unanimous. The articles stipulating the re- 
dress of our injuries by captures on the sea, are said to be 
delusive. By whom is this said ? The very men whose for- 
tunes are staked upon the competency of that redress say 
no such thing. They wait with anxious fear, lest you should 
annul that compact on which all their hopes are rested. 

Thus we offer proof, little short of absolute demonstra- 
tion, that the voice of our country is raised, not to sanction, 
but to depreciate, the non-performance of our engagements. 
It is not the nation ; it is one, and but one, branch of the 
government that proposes to reject them. With this aspect 
of things, to reject is an act of desperation. 



I^x.XCY.—EAIL! COLUMBIA. 

JOSEPH HOPKINSON.^ 

Hail ! Columbia, happy land ! 
Hail ! ye heroes, heav'n born band 

Who fought and bled in Freedom's cause ; 
And when the storm of war was done 
Enjoyed the peace your valor won. 

Let Independence be our boast, 

Ever mindful what it cost ; 
Ever grateful for the prize. 
Let its altar reach the skies. 

Firm united let us be ; 

Rallying round our liberty, 



ii 



Son of Francis Hopkinson, the Revolutionary Poet. 
7* 



154 . PATEIOTIC ELOQUENCE. 

As a band of brothers joined, 
Peace and safety we shall find. 

Immortal Patriots ! rise once more ! 
Defend your rights, defend your shore, 

Let no rude foe with impious hand 
Invade the shrine where sacred lies 
Of toil and blood the well-earned prize. 
While offering peace sincere and just, 
In heaven we place a manly trust 
That truth and justice will prevail. 
And every scheme of bondage fail. 

Sound, sound the trump of Fame ! 

-Let Washington's great name 

Ring through the world with loud applause ; 

Let every clime to Freedom dear 

Listen with a joyful ear. 

With equal skill, with god-like power, 
He governs in the fearM hour 

Of horrid war, or guides with ease 

The happier times of honest peace. 

Behold the Chief, who now commands. 
Once more to serve his country stands — 
The rock on which the storm will beat. 
But armed in virtue, firm and true, 
His hopes are fixed on Heaven and you. 
When hope was sinking in dismay, 
When glooms obscured Columbia's day, 
His steady mind, from changes free. 
Resolved on death or liberty ! 



Ex. XGYl.— FAREWELL AJDDEESS* 
To the people of the United States, Sept. 17, 1796. 

WASHINGTON. 

In looking forward to the moment which is to terminate 
the career of my political life, my feelings do not permit me 

* This masterpiece of political wisdom is throughout so excellent, so re- 
plete with sound statesmanship, sterling good sense, lofty patriotism and 
fatherly affection, that it has been diflScult to decide what portions should be 
left out. We recommend it as a whole, to the study of all young Americans. 



Washington's farewell address. 155 

to suspend the deep acknowledgment of that debt of grati- 
tude which I owe to my beloved country, for the many hon- 
ors it has conferred upon me ; still more for the steadfast 
confidence with which it has supported me ; and for the op- 
portunities I have thence enjoyed of manifesting my invio- 
lable attachment by services faithful and persevering, though 
in usefulness unequal to my zeal. If benefits have resulted 
to our country from these services, let it always be remem- 
bered to your praise, and as an instructive example in your 
annals, that under circumstances in which the passions, agi- 
tated in every direction, were* liable to mislead amidst ap- 
pearances sometimes dubious, vicissitudes of fortune often 
discouraging — in situations in which not unfrequently want 
of success has countenanced the spirit of criticism — the con- 
stancy of your support was the essential prop of the efforts, 
and a guarantee of the plans by which they were effected. 

Profoundly penetrated with this idea, I shall carry it 
with me to my grave, as a strong incitement to unceasing 
vows that heaven may continue to you the choicest tokens 
of its beneficence — ^that your union and brotherly affection 
may be perpetual — that the free constitution, which is the 
work of your hands, may be sacredly maintained — that its 
administration in every department may be stamped with 
wisdom and virtue — that, in fine, the happiness of the peo- 
ple of these States, under the auspices of liberty, may be 
made complete by so careful a preservation, and so prudent 
a use of this blessing, as will acquire to them the glory of 
recommending it to the applause, the affection, and adoption 
of every nation which is yet a stranger to it. 

Here, perhaps, I ought to stop. But a solicitude for your 
welfare, which can not end but with my life, and the appre- 
hension of danger natural to that solicitude, urge me, on an 
occasion like the present, to offer to your solemn contempla- 
tion, and to recommend to your frequent review, some senti- 
ments which are the result of much reflection, of no incon- 
siderable observation, and which appear to me all important 
to the permanency of your felicity as a people. These will 
be offered to you with the more freedom, as you can only 
see in them the disinterested warnings of a parting friend, 
who can possibly have no personal motive to bias his coun- 
sel. ISTor can I forget, as an encouragement to it, your in- 
dulgent reception of my sentiments on a former and not dis- 
similar occasion. 

Interwoven as is the love of liberty with every ligament 



156 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE. 

of your hearts, no recommendation of mine is necessary to 
fortify or confirm the attachment. The unity of government 
which constitutes you one people, is also now dear to you. 
It is justly so; for it is a main pillar in the edifice of your 
real independence ; the support of your tranquillity at home ; 
your peace abroad ; of your safety ; of your prosperity ; of 
that very liberty which you so highly prize. 

But, as it is easy to foresee, that from different causes 
and from different quarters, much pains will be taken, many 
artifices employed, to weaken in your minds the conviction 
of this truth ; as this is the point in your political fortress 
against which the batteries of internal and external enemies 
will be most constantly and actively (though often covertly 
and insidiously) directed ; it is of infinite moment, that you 
should properly estimate the immense value of your national 
union to your collective and individual happiness ; that you 
should cherish a cordial, habitual, and immovable attach- 
ment to it ; accustoming yourselves to think and speak of 
it as of the palladium of your political safety and prosperity ; 
watching for its preservation with jealous anxiety ; discoun- 
tenancing whatever may suggest even a suspicion that it 
can, in any event, be abandoned; and indignantly frowning^" 
upon the first dawning of every attempt to alienate any por- 
tion of our country from the rest, or to enfeeble the sacred 
ties that now link together the various parts. 

For this you have every inducement of sympathy and 
interest. Citizens by birth or choice, of a common country, 
that. country has a right to concentrate your affections. The 
name of American, which belongs to you in your national 
capacity, must always exalt the just pride of patriotism, 
more than any appellation derived from local discrimina- 
tions. With slight shades of difference, you have the same 
religion, manners, habits, and political principles. You have, 
in a common cause, fought and triumphed together; the in- 
dependence and liberty you possess, are the work of joint 
counsels and joint efforts, of common dangers, safferings, 
and successes. 



Washington's farewell addeess. 157 



Ex. XCYll.— FAREWELL ADDRESS— CONTINUED. 

But these considerations, however powerfully they ad- 
dress themselves to your sensibility, are greatly outweighed' 
by those ^vhich apply more immediately to your interest. 
Here, every portion of our country finds the most command- 
ing motives for carefully guarding and preserving the union 
of the whole. 

The N'orth^ in an unrestrained intercourse with the South, 
protected by the equal laws of a common government, finds 
in the productions of the latter great additional resources 
of maritime and commercial enterprise, and precious materi- 
als of manufacturing industry. The South, in the same inter- 
course, benefiting by the same agency of the North, sees its 
agriculture grow, and its commerce expand. Turning part- 
ly into its own channels the seamen of the North, it finds its 
particular navigation invigorated ; and while it contributes, 
in different ways, to nourish and increase the general mass 
of the national navigation, it looks forward to the protection 
of a maritime strength, to which itself is unequally adapted. 
The East, in a like intercourse with the West, already finds, 
and in the progressive improvement of interior communica- 
tions by land and water, will more and more find, a valuable 
vent for the commodities which it brings from abroad, or 
manufactures at home. The West derives from the East sup- 
plies requisite to its growth and comfort — and what is per- 
haps of still greater consequence, it must of necessity owe 
the secure enjoyment of indispensable outlets for its own pro- 
ductions, to the weight, influence, and the future maritime 
strength of the Atlantic side of the union, directed by an in- 
dissoluble community of interest as one nation. Any other 
tenure by which the West can hold this essential advantage, 
whether derived from its own separate strength or from an 
apostate and unnatural connexion with any foreign power, 
must be intrinsically precarious. 

While then everjr part of our country thus feels an imme- 
diate and particular interest in union, all the parts combined 
can not fail to find in the united mass of means and efforts, 
greater strength, greater resource, proportionably greater 
security from external danger, a less frequent interruption 
of their peace by foreign nations, and, what is of inestimable 
value, they must derive from union an exemption from those 



158 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE. 

broils and wars between themselves, which so frequently 
afflict neighboring countries not tied together by the same 
government, which their own rivalships alone would be suf- 
ficient to produce, but which opposite foreign alliances, at- 
tachments and intrigues, would stimulate and imbitter. 
Hence, likewise, they will avoid the necessity of those over- 
grown military establishments which, under any form of 
government, are inauspicious to liberty, and which are to be 
regarded as particularly hostile to republican liberty. In 
this sense it is, that your union ought to be considered as a 
main prop of your liberty, and that the love of one ought to 
endear to you the preservation of the other. 



Ex. XCYII1.—FAEBWULL ADDRESB— CONTINUED. 

In contemplating the causes which may disturb our 
union, it occurs as matter of serious concern, that any ground 
should have been furnished for characterizing parties by 
geographical discriminations ; northern and southern — Atlan- 
tic and western; whence designing men may endeavor to ex- 
cite a belief that there is a real difference of local interests 
and views. One of the expedients of party to acquire influ- 
ence within particular districts, is to misrepresent the opin- 
ions and aims of other districts. You can not shield your- 
selves too much against the jealousies and heart-burnings 
which spring from these misrepresentations : they tend to 
render alien to each other those who ought to be bound to- 
gether by fraternal affection. The inhabitants of our western 
country have lately had a useful lesson on this head ; they 
have seen, in the Negotiation by the executive, and in the 
unanimous ratification by the Senate of the treaty with Spain, 
and in the universal satisfaction at the event throughout the 
United States, a decisive proof how unfounded were the sus- 
picions propagated among them of a policy in the general 
government and in the Atlantic States, unfriendly to their 
interests in regard to the Mississippi. They have been wit- 
nesses to the formation of two treaties, that with Great 
Britain and that with Spain, which secure to them every- 
thing they could desire, in respect to our foreign relations, 
towards confirming their prosperity. Will it not be their 



Washington's faeewell address. 159 

.wisdom to rely for the preservation of these advantages on 
the union by which they were procured? will they not 
henceforth be deaf to these advisers, if such there are, who 
would sever them from their brethren, and connect them 
with aliens ? 

To the efficacy and permanency of your union, a govern- 
ment for the whole is indispensable, ^o alliances, however 
strict, between the parts can be an adequate substitute; they 
must inevitably experience the infractions and interruptions 
which all alliances, in all times, have experienced. Sensible 
of this momentous truth, you have improved upon your first 
essay, by the adoption of a constitution of government bet- 
ter calculated than your former for an intimate union, and 
for the efficacious management of your common concerns. 
This government, the offspring of our own choice, uninflu- 
enced and unawed, adopted upon full investigation and ma- 
ture deliberation, completely free in its principles, in the dis- 
tribution of its powers uniting security with energy, and 
containing within itself a provision for its own amendment, 
has a just claim to your confidence and your support. Re- 
spect for its authority, compliance with its laws, acquiescence 
in its measures, are duties enjoined by the fundamental 
maxims of true liberty. The basis of our political system is 
the right of the people to make and to alter their constitu- 
tions of government. But the constitution which at any 
time exists, until changed by an explicit and authentic act 
of the whole people, is sacredly obligatory upon all. The 
very idea of the power and the right of the people to estab- 
lish government, presupposes the duty of every individual 
to obey the established government. 

All obstructions to the execution of the laws, all com- 
binations and associations under whatever plausible charac- 
ter, with the real design to direct, control, counteract, or 
awe the regular deliberations and action of the constituted 
authorities, are destructive of this fundamental principle, and 
of fatal tendency. They serve to organize faction,, to give 
it an artificial and extraordinary force, to put in the place of 
the delegated will of the nation the will of party, often a 
small but enterprising minority of the community ; and, ac- 
cording to the alternate triumphs of different parties, to make 
the public administration the mirror of the ill-concerted and 
incongruous projects of faction, rather than the organ of con- 
sistent and wholesome plans digested by common councils, 
and modified by mutual interests. 



160 PATTIIOTIC ELOQUENCE. 



Ex. TGIX.— FAREWELL ADDRESS— CONTINUED. 

Haemont, and a liberal intercourse with all nations, are 
recommended by policy, humanity, and interest. But even 
our commercial policy should hold an equal and impartial 
hand ; neither seeking nor granting exclusive favors or pref- 
erences ; consulting the natural course of things ; diffusing 
and diversifying by gentle means the streams of commerce, 
but forcing nothing ; establishing with powers so disposed, — 
in order to give trade a stable course, to define the rights of 
our merchants, and to enable the government to support 
them, — conventional rules of intercourse, the best that present 
circumstances and mutual opinion will permit, but temporary, 
and liable to be from time to time abandoned or varied as 
efxperience and circumstances shall dictate ; constantly keep- 
ing in view, that it is folly in one nation to look for disinter- 
ested favors from another ; that it must pay with a portion 
of its independence for whatever it may accept under that 
character ; that by such acceptance, it may place itself in the 
condition of having given equivalents for nominal favors, 
and of being reproached with ingratitude for not giving 
more. There can be no greater error than to expect, or cal- 
culate upon real favors from nation to nation. It is an illu- 
sion which experience must cure, which a just pride ought 
to discard. 

In offering to you, my countrymen, these counsels of an 
old and affectionate friend, I dare not hope they will make 
the strong and lasting impression I could wish ; that they 
will control the usual current of the passions, or prevent our 
nation from running the course which has hitherto marked 
the destiny of nations ; but if I may even flatter myself that 
they may be productive of some partial benefit, some occa- 
sional good, — that they may now and then recur to moderate 
the fury of party spirit, to warn against the mischiefs of for-, 
eign intrigue, to guard against the impostures of pretended 
patriotism, — this hope will be a full recompense for the solici- 
tude for your welfare by which they have been dictated. 

How far, in the discharge of my official duties, I have 
been guided by the principles which have been delineated, 
the public records and other evidences of my conduct must 
witness to you and to the world. To myself, the assurance 
of my own conscience is, that I have, at least, believed my- 
self to be guided by them. 



ADAMS AKD LIBEETT. 161 

Thougli in reviewing the incidents of my administration, 
I am unconscious of intentional error, I am nevertheless too 
sensible of my defects not to think it probable that I may 
have committed many errors. Whatever they may be, I fer- 
vently beseech the Almighty to avert or mitigate the evils 
to which they may tend. I shall also carry with me the 
hope that my country will never cease to view them with 
indulgence ; and that, after forty-five years of my life dedi- 
cated to its service, with an upright zeal, the faults of incom- 
petent abilities will be consigned to oblivion, as myself must 
soon be to the mansions of rest. 

Relying on its kindness in this as in other things, and 
actuated by that fervent love towards it which is so natural 
to a man who views in it the native soil of himself and his 
progenitors for several generations, I anticipate with pleas- 
ing expectation that retreat in which I promise myself to 
realize, without alloy, the sweet enjoyment of partaking, in 
the midst of my fellow-citizens, the benign influence of good 
laws under a free government — the ever favorite object of 
my heart, and the happy reward, as I trust, of our mutual 
cares, labors and dangers. 



Ex. C— ADAMS AND LIBERTY.'' 

Ye sons of Coliunbia who bravely have fought 

For those rights, vvhich unstained from your sires had de- 
scended, 
May you long taste the blessings your valor has bought. 
And your sons reap the soil which your fathers defended. 
'Mid the reign of mild peace. 
May your nation increase, 
With the glory of Rome and the wisdom of Greece ; 
And ne'er shall the sons of Columbia be slaves, 
While the earth bears a plant, or the sea rolls its waves. 

The fame of our arms, of our laws the mild sway, 
Had justly ennobled our nation in story, 

* John Adams, second President of the United States, was inaugurated 
March 4, lYOY, and this congratulatory ode is supposed to have been written 
at about that time. 



162 PATEIOTIC ELOQmNCE. 

Till the dark clouds of faction obscured our young day, 
And enveloped the sun of American glory. 

But let traitors be told, 

Who their country have sold, 
And bartered their God for his image in gold, 

That ne'er will the sons, &c., 

Our mountains are crowned with imperial oak, 

Whose roots, like our liberties, ages have nourished ; 
But long e'er our nation submits to the yoke, 

Not a tree shall be left on the field where it flourished. 
Should invasion impend, 
Every grove would descend 
From the hill-tops they shaded, our shores to defend. 
For ne'er shall the sons, &g. 

Should the tempest of war overshadow our land, 

Its bolts could ne'er rend Freedom's temple asunder ; 
For, unmoved at its portal would Washington stand, 

And repulse, with his breast, the assaults of the thunder ! 
His sword from the sleep 
Of its scabbard would leap. 
And conduct, with its point, every flash to the^deep ! 
For ne'er shall the sons, &c. 

Let fame to the world sound America's voice ; 

No intrigues can her sons from their government sever ; 
Her pride is her Adams ; her laws are his choice. 
And shall flourish, till Liberty slumbers forever. 
Then unite heart and hand. 
Like Leonidas' band. 
And swear to the God of the ocean and land. 
That ne'er shall the sons of Columbia be slaves, 
While the earth bears a plant, or the sea rolls its waves. 



NECESSITY FOE PEEPAEATION FOE A WAE WITH FEANCE. 163 



Ex. CI.— NECESSITY FOR PREPARATION FOR A WAR WITH 
FRANCE.^ 

Speech in Congress, May, 1787. 

ROBERT GOODLOE HARPER.* 

"When France shall at length be convinced that we are 
fully resolved to call forth all our resources, and exert all 
our strength to resist her encroachments and aggressions, she 
will soon desist from them. She need not be told what 
these resources are \ she well knows their greatness and ex- 
tent ; she well knows that this country, if driven into a war, 
could soon become invulnerable to her attacks, and could 
throw a most formidable and prepondering weight into the 
scale of her adversary. She will not, therefore, drive us to 
this extremity, but will desist as soon as she finds us de- 
termined. Even if our means of injuring France, and of re- 
pelling her attacks, were less than they are, still they might 
be rendered all-sufficient by resolution and courage. It is in 
these that the strength of nations consists ; not in fleets, nor 
armies, nor population, nor money, but in the " unconquera- 
ble will — the courage never to submit or yield." 

These are the true sources of national greatness, and to 
use the words of a celebrated writer, " where these means are 
not wanting, all others will be found or created." It was 
by these means that Holland, in the days of her glory, 
triumphed over the mighty power of Spain. It is by these 
that in latter times, the Swiss, a people not half so numerous 
as we, and possessing few of our advantages, have hon- 
orably maintained their neutrality amid the shock of sur- 
rounding states, and against the haughty aggressions of 
France herself. It was this that made Rome the mistress 
of the world, and Athens the protectress of Greece. When 
was it that Rome attracted most strongly the admiration of 
mankind, and impressed the deepest sentiment of fear in the 
hearts of her enemies ? It was when seventy thousand of 
her sons lay bleeding at Cannse, and Hannibal, victorious 
over the Roman armies and twenty nations, was thundering 
at her gates. It was then that the young and heroic Scipio, 
having sworn on his sword, in the presence of the fathers of 
the country, not to despair of the republic, marched forth at 
the head of a people firmly determined to conquer or die ; and 



Member of Congress from South Carolina. 



164 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE. 

that resolution secured them the victory. When did Athens 
appear the greatest and most formidable? It was when, 
giving up their houses and possessions to the flames of the 
enemy, and having transferred their wives, their children, 
their aged parents and the symbols of their religion onboard 
of their fleet, they resolved to consider themselves as the 
republic, and their ships as their country. It was then they 
struck that terrible blow, under which the greatness of Persia 
sunk and expired. 

These means, Sir, and many others, are in our power : let 
us resolve to use them, and act so as to convince France 
that we have taken the resolution, and there will be noth- 
ing to fear. The conviction will be to us instead of fleets 
and armies, and even more effectual. Seeing us thus pre- 
pared, she will not attack us. Then will she listen to our 
peaceable proposals; then will she accept the concessions 
we mean to offer. But should this offer not be thus sup- 
ported, should it be attended by any circumstances from 
A^hich she can discover weakness, distrust or division, then 
will she reject it with .derision and scorn. And let it be re- 
membered that when we give. this vote, we vote not only 
on the peace of our country, but on what is far more im- 
portant — its rights and its honor. 



Ex. Qll.— INJUSTICE OF THE ALIEN AND SEDITION LAWS. 

Election Speech, delivered March, 1799. 

JOHN RANDOLPH.* 

AisD what is the subject of alarm? What are the laws 
we have dared to pronounce upon as unconstitutional and ty- 
rannical ? The first is a law authorizing the President of the 
United States to order any alien he may judge dangerous, 
any unfortunate refugee that may happen to fall under his 
royal suspicion", forthwith to quit the country. It is true 
that the law says he must have reasonable grounds to sus- 

* The biographer of Mr. Randolph does not profess to give het-e a literal 
transcript of his speech, but reports it from tradition ; these were, however, 
the sentiments expressed by him on this occasion. As a result of this ad- 
dress Mr. Randolph obtained his- first election to Congress, in which body he 
held a place for nearly thirty years. He was noted for his brilhant rhetoric 
and great powers of sarcasm, and was one of the warmest supporters of the 
Southern doctrine of " State Rights." 



Hf JUSTICE OF THE ALIEN AND SEDITION LAWS. 165 

pect. Who is to judge of that reason but himself? Who 
can look into his breast and say what motives have domin- 
ion there ? It is a mockery to give one man absolute power 
over the liberty of another, and then ask him, when the 
power is gone and can not be recalled, to exercise it reason- 
ably ! Power knows no other check but power. 

Let the poor patriot who may have fallen under the frowns 
of Government because he dared assert the rights of his 
countrymen, seek refuge on our shores of boasted liberty ; 
the moment he touches the soil of freedom, hoping here to 
iind a period to all his persecutions, he is greeted, not with 
the smile of welcome, or the cheerful voice of freemen, but 
the stem demands of an officer of the law — the executor of 
a tyrant's will — who summons him to depart. What crime 
has he perpetrated ? Vain inquiry ! He is a suspected per- 
son. He is judged dangerous to the peace of the country ; 
rebellious at home, he may be alike factious and seditious 
here. What remedy ? What hope ? He who condemns is 
judge ; there is no appeal from his arbitrary will. 

And what is that other law which so fully meets the ap- 
probation of my venerable fr^iend ? It is a law that makes it 
an act of sedition, pimishable by fine and imprisonment, to 
utter or write a sentiment that any prejudiced judge or juror 
may think proper to construe into disrespect of the Presi- 
dent of the United States. Is the man dreaming ! do you 
exclaim ? Is this a fancy picture he has drawn for our amuse- 
ment ? I am no fancy man, people of Virginia ! I speak 
the truth. I deal only in stern realities ! There is such a 
law on your Statute Book, in spite of your Constitution — in 
open contempt of those solemn guarantees that insure free- 
dom of speech and of the press to every American citizen. 

And yet the gentleman tells you we must wait until some 
infringem'ent is made on our rights ! Your Constitution 
broken, your citizens dragged to prison for daring to exercise 
the freedom of speech, armies levied, and yourselves threat- 
ened with immediate invasion for your audacious interference 
with the business of the Federal government — and you are 
told to wait for some infringement of your rights ! How 
long are we to wait ? Till the chains are fastened on us, and 
we can no longer help ourselves ? But, the gentleman says, 
your course may lead to civil war, and where are your re- 
sources? I answer him in his own words, handed down by 
the tradition of the past geueration, and engraven on the 
hearts of his grateftil countrymen, " Shall we gather strength 



166 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE. 

by irresolution and inaction ? Shall we acquire the means 
of effectual resistance by lying supinely on our backs and 
hugging the delusive phantom of hope until our enemies 
have bound us hand and foot ? Sir, we are not weak if we 
make a proper use of those means the God of nature hath 
placed in our power. The battle, Sir, is not to the strong 
alone ; it is to tlie vigilant, the active, the brave." * 



Ex. Gill.— EULOGY ON WASHINGTON. 

Delivered Tebruary 8, 1800. 

FISHER AMES. 

It is natural that the gratitude of mankind should be 
drawn to their benefactors. A number of these have suc- 
cessively arisen, who were no less distinguished for the ele- 
vation of their virtues than the lustre of their talents. Of 
these, however, who were born, and who acted through life 
as if they were born, not for themselves, but for their coun- 
try and the whole human race, how few, alas, are recorded 
in the long annals of ages, and how wide the intervals of 
time and space that divide them ! In all this dreary length 
of way, they appear like five or six light-houses on as 
many thousand miles of coast ; they gleam upon the sur- 
rounding darkness with an inextinguishable splendor, like 
stars seen through a mist ; but they are seen like stars, to 
cheer, to guide and to save. Washington is now added to 
that small number. Already he attracts curiosity, like a 
newly discovered star, whose benignant light will travel on 
to the world's and time's farthest bounds. Already his 
nam.e is hung up by history as conspicuously as if it sparkled 
in one of the constellations of the sky. 

By commemorating his death, we are called this day to 
yield the homage that is due to virtue ; to confess the com- 
mon debt of mankind, as well as our own ; and to pronounce 
for posterity, now dumb, that eulogium which they will de- 
light to echo ten ages hence, when we are dumb. 

I consider myself not merely in the midst of the citizens 
of this town, nor even of the State. In idea I gather around 
me the nation. In the vast and venerable congregation of the 

* Patrick Henry. 



EULOGY ON WASHINGTON. 167 

patriots of all countries, and of all enlightened men, I would, 
if I could, raise my voice, and speak to mankind in a strain 
worthy of my audience, and as elevated as my subject. But 
you have assigned me a task that is impossible. 

Oh, if I could perform it, if I could illustrate his princi- 
ples in my discourse as he displayed them in his life ; if I 
could paint his virtues as he practised them ; if I could con- 
vert the fervid enthusiasm of my heart into the talent to trans- 
mit his fame as it ought to pass to posterity, — I should be the 
successfiil organ of your will, the minister of his virtues, and, 
may I dare to say, the humble partaker of his immortal glory. 
These are ambitious, deceiving hopes, and I reject them ; for 
it is, perhaps, almost as difficult at once with judgment and 
feeling to praise great actions, as to perform them. A lavish 
and undistinguishing eulogium is not praise ; and to discrimi- 
nate such excellent qualities as were characteristic and pecu- 
liar to him, would be to raise a name, as he raised it, above 
envy, above parallel, perhaps, for that very reason, above 
emulation. 

How great he appeared while he administered the gov- 
ernment, how much greater when he retii-ed from it ; how he 
accepted the chief military command under his wise and up- 
right successor ; how his life was unspotted like his fame, 
and how his death was worthy of his life, are so many dis- 
tinct subjects of instruction, and each of them singly more 
than enough for a eulogium. I leave the task, however, to 
history and to posterity ; they will be faithful to it. 

There has scarcely appeared a really great man whose 
character has been more admired in his life-time, or less cor- 
rectly understood by his admirers. When it is comprehend- 
ed, it is no easy task to delineate its excellences in such a 
manner as to give the portrait both interest and resem- 
blance ; for it requii'es thought and study to understand the 
true ground of his superiority over many others, whom he 
resembled in the principles of action, and even in the manner 
of acting. But perhaps he excels all the great men that ever 
lived in the steadiness of his adherence to his maxims of life, 
and in the uniformity of his conduct to the same maxims. 
These maxims, though wise, were yet not so remarkable for 
their wisdom as for their authority over his life ; for if there 
were any errors in his judgment (and he discovered as few 
as any man), we know of no blemishes in his virtue. 

He was the patriot without reproach ; he loved his coun- 
try well enough to hold his success in serving it an ample 



168 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE. 

recompense. Thus far self-love and love of country coincided ; 
but when his country needed sacrifices few could, or perhaps 
would be willing to make, he did not even hesitate. This 
was virtue in its most exalted character. More than once he 
put his fame at hazard, when he had reason to think it would 
be sacrificed, at least in this age. Two instances can not be 
denied ; when the army was disbanded, and again when he 
stood, like Leonidas at the pass of Thermopylse, to defend 
our independence against France. 

Epaminondas is perhaps the brightest name of all an- 
tiquity. Our Washington resembled him in the purity and 
ardor of his patriotism ; and, like him, he first exalted the 
glory of his country. There it is to be hoped the compari- 
son ends ; for Thebes fell with Epaminondas. But such com- 
parisons cannot be pursued far, without departing from the 
similitude. For we shall find it as difficult to compare great 
men as great rivers ; some we admire for the length and ra- 
pidity of their current, and the grandeur of their cataracts ; 
others for the majestic silence and fulness of their streams ; 
we can not bring them together to measure the difierence of 
their waters. The unambitious life of Washington, declining 
fame, yet courted by it, seemed, like the Ohio, to choose its 
long way through solitudes, difiVising fertility ; or, like his 
own Potomac, widening and deejDening his channel as he ap- 
proached the sea, and displaying most the usefulness and se- 
renity of his greatness towards the end of his course. Such 
a citizen would do honor to any country. The constant ven- 
eration and affection of his country will show that it was 
worthy of such a citizen. 



Ex. CW,— WASHINGTON A MODEL FOR THE FORMATION OF 
CHARACTER. 

WILLIAM WIRT. 

Let your ambition, gentlemen, be to enroll your names 
among those over whose histories our hearts swell and our 
eyes overflow with admiration, delight, and sympathy, from 
infancy to old age ; and the story of whose virtues, exploits 
and sufferings, will continue to produce the same effect 
throughout the world, at whatever distance of time they may 
be read. It is needless, and it would be endless, to name 



WASHINGTON A MODEL FOR CHARACTER. 169 

them. On the darker firmament of history, ancient and mod- 
ern, they form a galaxy resplendent with their lustre. To 
go no further back, look' for your model to the signers of our 
declaration of independence. You see revived in these men 
the spirit of ancient Rome in Home's best day ; for they 
were willing, with Curtius, to leap into the flaming gulf, 
which the oracle of their own wisdom had assured them 
could be closed in no other way. 

There was one, however, whose name is not among those 
signers, but who must not, nay, can not, be forgotten ; for, 
when a great and decided patriot is the theme, his name is 
not far off. Gentlemen, you need not go to past ages, nor 
to distant countries. You need not turn your eyes to an- 
cient Greece, or Rome, or to modern Europe. You have, in 
your own Washington, a recent model, whom you have only 
to imitate to become immortal. 

Nor must you suppose that he owed his greatness to the 
peculiar crisis which called out his virtues, and despair of 
such another crisis for the display of your own. /His more 
than Roman virtues, his consummate prudence, his powerful 
intellect, and his dauntless decision and dignity of character, 
would have made him illustrious in any age. The crisis 
would have done nothing for him, had not his character 
stood ready to match it./ Acquire his charactei', and fear not 
the recurrence of a crisis to show forth its glory. Look at 
the elements of commotion that are already at work in this 
vast republic, and threatening us with a moral earthquake 
that will convulse it to its foundation. 

Look at the political degeneracy which pervades the 
country, and which has already borne us so far away from 
the golden age of the Revolution ; look at all " the signs of 
the times," and you will see but little cause to indulge the 
hope that no crisis is likely to recur to give full scope for the 
exercise of the most heroic virtues. Hence it is, that I so 
anxiously hold up to you the model of Washington. Form 
yourselves on that noble model. Strive to acquire his mod- 
esty, his disinterestedness, his singleness of heart, his deter- 
mined devotion to his country, his candor in deliberation, his 
accuracy of judgment, his invincible firmness of resolve, and 
then may you hope to be in your own age w^hat he was in 
his, — " first in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of 
your countrymen." 

Commencing your career with this high standard of char- 
acter, your course will be as steady as the needle to the pole. 



170 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE. 

Your end will always be virtuous, your means always noble. 
You will adorn as well as bless your country. You will ex- 
alt and illustrate the age in which you live. Your example 
will shake, like a tempest, that pestilential pool in which the 
virtues of our people are already beginning to stagnate, and 
restore the waters and the atmosphere to their revolutionary 
purity. 



Ex. QY. —WASHINGTON. 



ELIZA COOK. 



Land of the west ! though passing brief the record of thine 

age. 
Thou hast a name that darkens all on history's wide page ! 
Let all the blasts of fame ring out — thine shall be loudest 

far; 
Let others boast their satellites — thou hast the planet star. 

Thou hast a name whose characters of light shall ne'er de- 
part ; 

'T is stamped upon the dullest brain, and warms the coldest 
heart ; 

A war-cry fit for any land where Freedom 's to be won ; 

Land of the West ! it stands alone — it is thy Washington ! 

Rome had its Caesar, great and brave ; but stain was on hia 
wreath ; 

He lived the heartless conqueror, and died the tyrant's death ; 

France had its eagle ; but his wings, though lofty they might 
soar. 

Were spread in false ambition's flight, and dipped in mur- 
derer's gore. 

Those hero-gods, whose mighty sway would fain have chained 

the waves — 
Who fleshed their blades with tiger zeal, to make a world of 

slaves — 
Who, though their kindred barred the path, still fiercely 

waded on — 
Oh I where shall be their glory by the side of Washington ? 



EULOGIUM ON WASHINGTON. 17I 

He fought, but not with love of strife ; he struck but to de- 
fend; 

And ere he turned a people's foe, he sought to be a friend. 

He strove to keep his country's right by reason's gentle word, 

And sighed when fell iujustice threw the challenge, sword to 
sword. 

He stood the firm, the calm, the wise — the patriot and sage ; 
He showed no deep avenging hate, no burst of despot rage. 
He stood for liberty and truth, and dauntlessly led on, 
Till shouts of victory gave forth the name of Washington. 

No car of triumph bore him through a city filled with grief; 
!N"o groaning captives at the wheels proclaimed the victor 

chief; 
He broke the gyves of slavery with strong and high disdain, 
And cast no sceptre from the links when he had crushed the 

chain. 

He saved his land, but did not lay his soldier trappings down 
To change them for the regal vest, and don a kingly crown. 
Fame was too earnest in her joy — too proud of such a son, 
To let a robe and'title mask a noble Washino-ton. 



Ex. QYl.— EULOGIUM ON WASHINGTON: 

CHARLES PHILLIPS.* 

It matters very little what immediate spot may be the 
birth-place of such a man as Washington. 1:^0 people can 
claim, no country can appropriate him ; the boon of Provi- 
dence to the human race, his fame is eternity, and his resi- 
dence creation. Though it was the defeat of our arms and 
the disgrace of our policy, I almost bless the convulsion in 
which he had his origin. If the heavens thundered and the 
earth rocked, yet, when the storm passed, how pure was the 
climate that it cleared ; how bright in the brow of the firma- 
ment was the planet which it revealed to us ! In the pro- 
duction of Washington it does really appear as if nature was 
endeavoring to improve upon herself, and that all the virtues 
of the ancient world were but so many studies preparatory 
to the patriot of the new. 

* A celebrated Irish banister, 



172 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE. 

Individual instances no doubt there were — splendid ex- 
emplifications of some single qualification ; Ceesar was merci- 
ful, Scipio was continent, Hannibal was patient ; but it was 
reserved for Washington to blend them all in one, and like 
the lovely chefd''cBuvre of the Grecian artist, to exhibit in 
one glow of associated beauty, the pride of every model, and 
the perfection of every master. As a general, he marshalled 
the peasant into a veteran, and supplied by discipline the 
absence of experience ; as a statesman, he enlarged the poli- 
cy of the cabinet into the most comprehensive system of 
general advantage ; and such was the wisdom of his views, 
and the philosophy of his counsels, that to the soldier and 
the statesman he almost added the character of the sage ! 
A conqueror, he was untainted with the crime of blood ; a 
revolutionist, he was free from any stain of treason ; for ag- 
gression commenced the contest, and his country called him 
to the command. 

Liberty unsheathed his sword, necessity stained, victory 
returned it. If he had paused here, history might have 
doubted what station to assign him ; whether at the head of 
her citizens or her soldiers — ^her heroes or her patriots. But 
the last glorious act crowns his career and banishes all hesi- 
tation. Who, like Washington, after having emancipated a 
hemisphere, resigned its crown, and preferred the retirement 
of domestic life to the adoration of a land he might be almost 
said to have created ? 

" How shall we rank thee upon glory's page, 
Thou more than soldier and just less than sage ; 
AU thou hast been reflects less fame on thee, 
Far less, than all thou hast forborne to be ! " 

Such, Sir, is the testimony of one not to be accused of 
partiality in his estimate of America. Happy, proud Ameri- 
ca ! The lightnings of Heaven yielded to your philosophy ! 
The temptations of earth could not seduce your patriotism ! 



Ex. CYU.—GJEJnVS OF WASHINGTON. 

EDWIN P. WHIPPLE. 

This illustrious man, at once the world's admiration and 
enigma, we are taught by a fine instinct to venerate, and by 



GENIUS OF WASHINGTON. 173 

I wrong opinion to misjudge. The might of his character 
las taken strong hold upon the feelings of great masses of 
nen ; but in translating this universal sentiment into an in- 
elligent form, the intellectual element of his wonderful na- 
ture is as much depressed as the moral element is exalted, 
md consequently we are apt to misunderstand both. How 
nany times have we been told that he was not a man of gen- 
ius, but a person of " excellent common sense," of " admirable 
judgment," of " rare virtues ! " and, by a constant repetition 
of this, we have nearly succeeded in divorcing comprehen- 
sion from his sense, insight from his judgment, force from 
his virtues, and life from the man. 

He had no genius, it seems. Oh, no ! genius, we must 
suppose, is the peculiar and shining attribute of some orator, 
whose tongue can spout patriotic speeches, or some versifier, 
whose muse can " Hail Columbia," but not of the man who 
supported states on his arm, and carried America in his 
brain. What is genius ? Is it worth anything ? Is splen- 
did folly the measure of its inspiration ? Is wisdom its base 
and summit, — that which it recedes from, or tends towards ? 
And by what definition do you award the name to the crea- 
tor of an epic, and deny it to the creator of a country ? On 
what principle is it to be lavished on him who sculptures in 
perishiMg marble the image of possible excellence, and with- 
held from him who built up in himself a transcendent char- 
acter, indestructible as the obligations of duty, and beauti- 
ful as her rewards ? 

Indeed, if by the genius of action you mean will enlight- 
ened by intelligence, and intelligence energized by will, — ■ 
if force and insight be its characteristics, and influence its 
test, — and, especially, if great effects suppose a cause propor- 
tionably great, that is, a vital, causative mind, — then is 
Washington most assuredly a man of genius, and one whom 
no other American has equalled in the power of Avorking 
morally and mentally on other minds. His genius, it is true, 
was of a peculiar kind ; the genius of character, of thought 
and the objects of thought solidified and concentrated into 
active faculty. He belongs to that rare class of men, — rare 
as Homers and Miltons, — rare as Platos and Newtons, — who 
have impressed their characters upon nations without pam- 
pering national vices. Such men have natures broad enough 
to include all the facts of a people's practical life, and deep 
enough to discern the spiritual laws which underlie, animate, 
and govern those facts. 



174 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE. 

Washington, in short, had that greatness of character 
which is the highest expression and last result' of greatness 
of mind ; for there is no method of building up character ex- 
cept through mind. Indeed, character like his is not huilt 
up, stone upon stone, precept upon precept, but grows up, 
through an actual contact of thought with things; the assimi- 
lative mind transmuting the impalpable but potent spirit of 
public sentiment, and the life of visible facts, and the power 
of spiritual laws, into individual life and power, so that their 
mighty energies put on personality, as it were, and act 
through one centralizing human will. This process may not, 
if you please, make the great philosopher or the great poet ; 
but it does make the great man^ — the man in whom thought 
and judgment seem identical with volition, — the man whose 
vital expression is not in words, but deeds, — the man whose 
sublime ideas issue necessarily in sublime acts, not in sublime 
art. It was because Washington's character was thus com- 
posed of the inmost substance and power of facts and prin- 
cijDles, that men instinctively felt the perfect reality of \m 
comprehensive manhood. This reality enforced universal 
respect, married strength to repose, and threw into his fac( 
that commanding majesty, which made men of the specula- 
tive audacity of Jefferson, and the lucid genius of Hamilton, 
recognize, with unwonted meekness, his awful superierity. 



Ex. GYlll.— INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 

Delivered before tlie Senate, March 4, 1801. 



THOMAS JEFFERSON. 



Let us reflect, fellow-citizens, that having banished from 
our land that religious intolerance under which mankind so 
long bled and suffered, we have yet gained little, if we coun- 
tenance a political intolerance as despotic, as wicked, and 
capable of as bitter and bloody persecutions. During the 
throes and convulsions of the ancient world — during the 
agonizing spasms of infuriated man, seeking, through blood 
and slaughter, his long lost liberty — it is not wonderful that 
the agitation of the billows should reach even this distant 
and peaceful shore ; that this should be more felt and feared 
by some, and less by others, and should divide oj^inions as 



AGAINST THE REPEAL OP THE JUDICIART ACT. 175 

to measures of safety ; but every difference of opinion is not 
a difference of principle. We are all Republicans ; we are 
all Federalists. 

If there be any among us wlio would wish to dissolve 
this Union, or to change its republican form, let them stand 
undisturbed as monuments of the safety with which error of 
opinion may be tolerated, where reason is left free to com- 
bat it. I know, indeed, that some honest men fear that a 
republican government cannot be strong ; but would the 
honest patriot, in the full tide of successful experiment, aban- 
don a government which has so far kept us free and firm, 
on the theoretic and visionary fear that this government, the 
world's best hope, may by possibility want energy to pre- 
serve itself? I trust not. I believe this, on the contrary, 
the strongest government on earth. I believe it the only 
one where every man, at the call of the law, would fly to the 
standard of the law, and would meet invasions of the public 
order as his own personal concern. Sometimes it is said that 
man can not be trusted with the government of himself. Can 
he then be trusted with the government of others ? Or have 
we found angels, in the form of kings, to govern him ? Let 
history answer this question. 

Let us then with courage and confidence pursue our own 
federal and republican principles. These principles form the 
bright constellation which has gone before us, and guided 
our steps through an age of revolution and reformation. The 
wisdom of our sages and blood of our heroes have been de- 
voted to their attainment ; they should be the creed of our 
political faith, the text of civic instruction, the touch-stone 
by which to try the services of those we trust ; and, should 
we wander from them in moments of error or of alarm, let us 
hasten to retrace our steps, and to regain the road which 
alone leads to peace, liberty, and safety. 



Ex. QU..— AGAINST THE REPEAL OF THE JUDICIARY ACT, 

Speech in Congress, 1802. i 

GOUVERNEUR MORRIS.* 

Me. Peesident, our situation is peculiar. At present our 
national compact can prevent a State from acting hostilely 

*' Mr. Morris was at this time U. S. Senator from New York. His public 



176 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE. 

towards the general interest. But let this compact be de- 
stroyed, and each State becomes instantaneously invested 
with absolute sovereignty. But what, I ask, will be the 
situation of these States, if, by the dissolution of our na- 
tional compact, they be left to themselves ? What is the 
probable result ? We shall either be the victims of foreign 
intrigue, and, split into factions, fall under the domination of 
a foreign power ; or else, after the misery and torment of 
civil war, become the subjects of a usurping military despot. 
What but this compact — what but this specific part of it, 
can save us from ruin ? 

The judicial power, that fortress of the Constitution, is 
now to be overturned. With honest Ajax, I would not only 
throw a shield before it — I would build around it a wall of 
brass. But I am too weak to defend the rampart against 
the host of assailants. I must call to my assistance their 
good sense, their patriotism, and their virtue. Do not, gen- 
tlemen, suffer the rage of passion to drive reason from her 
seat. If this law be indeed bad, let us join to remedy the 
defects. Has it been passed in a manner which wounded 
your pride or roused your resentment ? Have, I conjure you, 
the magnanimity to pardon that offence. I entreat, I im- 
plore you, to sacrifice those angry passions to the interests 
of our country. Pour out this pride of opinion on the altar 
of patriotism. Let it be an expiatory libation for the weal 
of America. Do not, for God's sake, do not suffer that pride 
to plunge us all into the abyss of ruin. 

Indeed, indeed, it will be of little, very little avail, 
whether one opinion or the other be right or wrong ; it will 
heal no wonnds ; it will pay no debts ; it will rebuild no 
ravaged towns. Do not rely on that popular will which has 
brought us frail beings into political existence. That opin- 
ion is but a changeable thing. It will soon change. This 
very measure will change it. You will be deceived. Do 
not, I beseech you, in reliance on a foundation so frail, com- 
mit the dignity, the harmony, the existence of our nation to 
the wild wind. Trust not your treasure to the waves. 

services began with his election to the Provincial Congress of New York in 
17*75 ; he was afterward member of the Continental Congress, and of the Con- 
vention which framed the Constitution. He aided Robert Morris in those 
financial operations so important to the struggling country ; and during 
Washington's administration was appointed Minister to France. His vast in- 
formation, long political experience, and fervid eloquence, gave him a con- 
spicuous place in the Senate, even among the brilliant lights so numerous in 
that body at the beginning of this century. 



NECESSITY OF AYOIDING A WAR WITH rRANCE. 177 

Throw not your compass and your charts into the ocean. 
Do not believe that its billows will waft you into port. In- 
deed, indeed, you will be deceived. Oh ! cast not away this 
only anchor of our safety. I have seen its progress. I know 
the difficulties through which it was obtained. I stand in 
the presence of Almighty God and of the world. I declare 
to you, that if you lose this charter, never, no, never, will you 
get another ! We are now, perhaps, arrived at the parting 
point. Here, even here, we stand on the brink of fate. 
Pause ! Pause ! For Heaven's sake, pause ! 



Ex. ex.— NECESSITY OF AVOIDING A WAR WITH FRANCE. 

Speech in Congress, 1803. 

DE WITT CLINTON.* 

If I were called upon to prescribe a course of policy most 
important for this country to pursue, it would be to avoid 
European connections and wars. The time must arrive when 
we will have to contend with some of the great powers of 
Europe, but let that period be put off as long as possible. 
As a young nation, pursuing industry in every channel, and 
adventuring commerce in every sea, it is highly important 
that we should not only have a pacific character, but that we 
should deserve it. If we manifest an unwarrantable ambi- 
tion, and a rage for conquest, we unite all the great powers 
of Europe against us. The security of all the European 
possessions in our vicinity will eternally depend, not upon 
their strength, but upon our moderation and justice. Look 
at the Canadas ; at the Spanish territories to the south ; at 
the British, Spanish, French, Danish and Dutch West India 
Islands ; at the vast countries to the west, as far as where 

* Mr. Clinton was for two sessions in the IT. S. Senate, but passed the rest 
of his pohtical life in posts of honor and responsibility in his native State. 
Such was the value attached to his services by his fellow-citizens, that they 
never allowed him to be unemployed except when he declined an election. 
It was his public spirit and perseverance that carried through the construction 
of the Erie Canal, amid discouragement and opposition that would have over- 
powered a person of less firm determination. At the time of making the 
speech quoted above, he was comparatively a young man, and his cautious 
policy is in singular contrast with the impetuous war-temper of hia colleague, 
Mr. Morris, many years his senior. 
8* 



178 PATEIOTIC ELOQUENCE. 

the Pacific rolls it« waves. Consider well the consequences 
that would result, if we were possessed by a spirit of con- 
quest. Consider well the impression which a manifestation 
of that spirit will make upon those who would be affected 
by it. 

If we are to rush at once into the territory of a neighbor- 
ing nation with fire and sword, for the misconduct of a sub- 
ordinate oflicer, will not our national character be greatly 
injured ? Will we not be classed with the robbers and de- 
stroyers of mankind ? Will not the nations of Europe per- 
ceive in this conduct the germ of a lofty spirit and an enter- 
prising ambition, which will level them to the earth, when 
age has matured our strength, and expanded our powers of 
annoyance, unless they combine to cripple us in our infancy ? 
May not the consequences be, that we must look out for a 
naval force to protect our commerce — that a close alliance 
will result — that we will be throwm at once into the ocean 
of European politics, where every wave that rolls, and every 
wind that blows, will agitate our bark ? Is this a desirable 
state of things ? Will the people of this country be seduced 
into it by all the colorings of rhetoric, and all the arts of 
sophistry, by vehement appeals to their pride, and artful ad- 
dresses to their cupidity ? No, Sir ! Three-fourths of the 
American people — I assert it boldly and without fear of con- 
tradiction — are opposed to this measure ! And would you 
take up arms with a mill-stone hanging around your neck ? 
How would you bear up, not only against the force of the 
enemy, but against the irresistible current of public opinion ? 
The thing. Sir, is impossible; the measure is worse than 
maduess ; it is wicked beyond the powers of description ! 



Ex. CXI.— NECESSITY OF PREPARING FOR A WAR WITH 
FRANCE. 

Speech in Congress, 1803. 

- GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 

Me. Peesident : My object is peace. I could assign 
many reasons to show that this declaration is sincere. But 
can it be necessary to give the Senate any other assurance 
than my word ? Notwithstanding the acerbity of temper 



NECESSITY OP PEEPAEING FOE A WAR WITH FEANCE. 179 

which results from party strife, gentlemen will believe me 
on my word. I will not pretend, like my honorable col- 
league, to describe to you the waste, the ravages, and the 
horrors of war. I have not the same harmonious periods, 
nor the same musical tones ; neither shall I boast of Christian 
charity, nor attempt to display that ingenuous glow of be- 
nevolence, so decorous to the cheek of youth, which gave a 
vivid tint to every sentence he uttered, and was, if possible, 
as impressive even as his eloquence. But though we possess 
not the same pomp of words, our hearts are not insensible to 
the woes of humanity. We can feel for the misery of plun- 
dered towns, the conflagration of defenceless villages, and the 
devastation of cultured fields. 

Yes, Sir, we wish for peace ; but how is that blessing to 
be preserved ? In my opinion, there is nothing worth fight- 
ing for but national honor ; for in the national honor is in- 
volved the national independence. I know that prudence 
may force a wise government to conceal the sense of indig- 
nity ; but the insult should be engraven on tablets of brass 
with a pencil of steel. And when that time and change, 
which happen to all, shall bring forward the favorable mo- 
ment, then let the avenging arm strike home. It is by avow- 
ing and maintaining this stern principle of honor, that peace 
can be preserved. 

I have no hesitation in ^ying that you ought to have 
taken possession of 'New Orlmns and the Floridas the instant 
your treaty was violated. You ought to do it now. Your 
rights are invaded, confidence in negotiation is in vain ; 
there is therefore no alternative but force. You are exposed 
to imminent present danger ; you have the prospect of great 
future advantage ; you are justified by the clearest principles 
of right ; you are urged by the strongest motives of policy ; 
you are commanded by every sentiment of national dignity. 

Look, Mr. President, at the conduct of America in her 
infant years. When there was no actual invasion of right, 
but only a claim to invade, she resisted the claim ; she spurn- 
ed the insult. Did we then hesitate ? Did we then wait for 
foreign alliance ? No ; animated with the spirit, warmed by 
the soul of Freedom, we threw our oaths of allegiance in 
the face of our sovereign, and committed our fortunes and 
our fate to the God of battles. We were then subjects. 
We had not then attained to the dignity of an independent 
republic. We then had no rank among the nations of the 
earth. But we had the spirit which deserved that elevated 



180 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE. 

Station. And now that we have gained it, shall we fall from 
our honor ? 

Sir, I repeat to you that I wish for peace — real, lasting, 
honorable peace. To obtain and secure this blessing, let us, 
by a bold and decisive conduct, convince the powers of Eu- 
.rope that we are determined to defend our rights ; that we 
will not submit to insult ; that we will not bear degradation. 
This is the conduct which becomes a generous peoj)le. This 
conduct will command the respect of the world. I can not 
believe, with my honorable colleague, that three-fourths of 
America are opposed to vigorous measures. I can not believe 
that they will meanly refuse to pay the sums needful to vin- 
dicate their honor and support their independence. Sir, this 
is a libel on the people of America. They will disdain sub- 
mission to the proudest sovereign of earth. They have not 
lost the spirit of '76. But, Sir, if they are so base as to bar- 
ter their rights for gold, if they are so vile that they will not 
defend their honor, they are unworthy of the rank they en- 
joy, and it is no matter how soon they are parcelled out 
amono: better masters. 



Ex. CXIl.— SONG. 



Remember the glories of patriots brave, 

Though the days of the heroes are o'er ; 
Long lost to their country, and cold in their grave, 

They return to their kindred no more. 
The stars of the field, which in victory poured 

Their beams on the battle, are set ; 
But enough of their glory remains on each sword 

To light us to victory yet ! 

Wollansac ! when nature embellished the tint 

Of thy fields and thy mountains so fair. 
Did she ever intend that a tyrant should print 

The footsteps of slavery there ? 
No ! Freedom, whose smiles we shall never resign, 

Told those who invaded our plains, 
That 'tis sweeter to bleed for an age at thy shrine, 

Than to sleep for a moment in chains. 



JEFFEKSON's PTJKCHASB of LOUISIANA. 181 

Forget not the chieftains of Hampshire, who stood 

In the day of distress by our side ; 
'Nor the heroes who nourished the fields with their blood, 

Nor the rights they secured as they died. 
The sun that now blesses our eyes with his light, 

Saw the martyrs of liberty slain; 
Oh, let him not blush, when he leaves us to-night, 

To find that they feill there in vain ! 



Ex. GTLll.— JEFFERSON'S PURCHASE OF THE LOUISIANA 
TERRITORY, MADE IN 1803. 

HENRY S. KANDALL. 

Kg conqueror who has trod the earth to fill it with desola- 
tion and mourning, ever conquered and permanently amalga- 
mated with his native kingdom a remote approach to the same 
extent of territory secured by this peaceful purchase. But 
one kingdom in Europe equals the extent of one of its present 
states. Germany supports a population of thirty-seven mil- 
lions of people. All Germany has a little more than the 
area of two-thirds of Nebraska ; and, acre for acre, less till- 
able land. The Louisiana territory, as densely populated in 
proportion to its natural materials of sustentation as parts of 
Europe, would be capable of supporting from four to five 
hundred millions of people. The whole United States be- 
came capable, by this acquisition, of sustaining a larger pop- 
ulation than ever occupied Europe. 

This purchase secured, independently of territory, several 
prime national objects. It gave us that homogeneousness, 
unity and independence which is derived from the absolute 
control and disposition of our commerce, trade and industry, 
in every department, without the hindrance or meddling 
of any intervening nation between us and any natural 
element of industry, between us and the sea, or between us 
and the open market of the world. It gave us ocean boun- 
daries on all exposed sides; it made us indisputably and 
forever (if our own Union is preserved), the controllers of 
the Western Hemisphere. It placed our national course, 
character, civilization and destiny solely in our own hands. 



182 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE. 

It gave us the certain sources of a not distant numerical 
strength to which that of the mightiest empires of the past 
or present is insignificant. 

A Gallic Caesar was leading his armies over shattered 
kingdoms. His armed foot shook the world. He decimated 
Europe. Millions on millions of mankind perished, and there 
was scarcely a human habitation from the Polar seas to 
the Mediterranean, where the A^oice of lamentation was 
not heard over kindred slaughtered to swell the conqueror's 
strength and " glory ! " And the carnage and rapine of war 
are trifling evils compared with its demoralizations. The 
rolling tide of conquest subsided. France shrank back to her 
ancient limits. !N"apoleon died a rejoining captive on a rock 
of the ocean. The stupendous tragedy was played out, and 
no physical results were left behind but decrease, depopula- 
tion and universal loss. 

A Republican President, on a distant continent, was also 
seeking to aggrandize his country. He led no armies. He 
shed not a solitary drop of human blood. He caused not a 
tear of human woe. He bent not one toiling back lower by 
governmental burdens. Strangest of political anomalies, 
(and ludicrous as strange to the representatives of the ideas 
of the tyrannical and bloody past,) he lightened the taxes 
while he was lightening the debts of a nation. And with- 
out interrupting either of these meliorations for an instant — 
without imposing a single new exaction on his people, he ac- 
quired, peaceably and permanently for his country, more ex- 
tensive and fertile domains than ever for a moment owned the 
sway of l^apoleon — more extensive ones than his gory plume 
ever floated over. 

Which of these victors deserves to be termed " glorious ? " 



lEx. CXIY.— WAH DISCOUNTENANCED. 
Speech in Congress, March, 1806. 

JOHN KANDOLPH. 

What, Sir, is the question in dispute ? The carrying 
trade. What part of it ? The fair, the honest, and the use- 
ful trade, ttat is engaged in carrying our own productions 



WAK DISCOUNTENANCED. 183 

I- 

to foreign markets, and bringing back their productions in 
exchange ? No, Sir ; it is that carrying trade which covers 
enemies' property, and carries the coffee, the sugar, and other 
West India products to the mother country. No, Sir ; if 
this great agricultural nation is to be governed by Sal em and 
Boston, New York and Philadelphia, Baltimore, Norfolk and 
Charleston, let gentlemen come out and say so ; and let a 
committee of public safety be appointed from these towns to 
carry on the government. I, for one, will not mortgage my 
property and my liberty to carry on this trade. The nation 
said so seven years ago ; I said so then, I say so now ; it 
is. not for the honest carrying trade of America, but for 
this mushroom, this fungus of war, — for a trade which, as 
soon as the nations of Europe are at peace, will cease to 
exist — it is for this that the spirit of avaricious traffic would 
plunge us into war. 

But yet. Sir, I have a more cogent reason against going 
to war for the honor of the flag in the narrow seas, or any 
other maritime punctilio. It springs from my attachment to 
the principles of the government under which I live. I de- 
clare, in the face of day, that this government was not insti- 
tuted for the purposes of offensive war. No ; it was framed, 
to use its own language, for the common defence and general 
welfare, which are inconsistent with offensive war. As, in 
1798, I was opposed to this species of warfare, because I 
believed it would raze the Constitution to its very founda- 
tion ; so, in 1806, I am opposed to it on the very same 
grounds. No sooner do you put the Constitution to this 
use — to a test which it is by no means calculated to endure, — 
than its incompetency to such purposes becomes manifest and 
apparent to all. I fear that if you go into a foreign war, for 
a circuitous, unfair foreign trade, you will come out without 
your Constitution. We shall be told that our government 
is too free, or in other words, too weak and inefficient — much 
virtue. Sir, in terms ; — that we must give the President pow- 
er to call forth the resources of the nation — that is, to filch 
the last shilling from our pockets, or to drain the last drop of 
blood from our veins. I am against giving this power to any 
man, be he who he may. The American people must either 
withhold this power, or resign their liberties. There is no 
other alternative. Nothing but the most imperious neces- 
sity will justify such a grant ; and is there a powerful enemy 
at our door ? You may begin with a First Consul. From 
that chrysalis state he soon becomes an emperor. You have 



184 PATEIOTIC ELOQUENCE. 

yoiir choice. It depends upon your election whether you 
^'ill be a free, happy and united people at home, or the light 
of your executive majesty shall beam across the ocean in one 
general blaze -of the public liberty. 



Ex. GXY.— JUSTICE DEMANDED FOR THE SOLDIERS OF THE 
REVOLUTION. 

p. SPRAGUB. 

Sir: the present relief for the soldiers of the Revolu- 
tion is not sufficient. The act should have embraced all, 
without any discriminatioD, except of services. But that 
act, partly by subsequent laws, and partly by illiberal rules 
of construction, has been narrowed far within its original 
scope. I am constrained to say, that, in the practical execu- 
tion of these laws, the whole beneficent spirit of our institu- 
tions seems to have been reversed. Instead of presuming 
every man to be upright and true, until the contrary appears, 
every applicant seems to be presupposed to be false and per- 
jured. Instead of bestowing these hard-earned rewards with 
alacrity, they appear to have been refused, or yielded with 
reluctance ; and to send away the war-worn veteran, bowed 
down with the infirmities of age, empty from your door, 
seems to have been deemed an act of merit. 

So rigid has been the construction and application of the 
existing law, that cases most strictly within its provisions of 
meritorious service and abject poverty, have been excluded 
from its benefits. Yet gentlemen tell us, that this law, so 
administered, is too liberal ; that it goes too far, and they 
would repeal it. They would take back even the little which 
they have given ! And is this possible ? Look abroad upon 
this wide-extended land, upon its wealth, its happiness, its 
hopes ; and then turn to the aged soldier, who gave you all, 
and see him descend in neglect and poverty to the tomb !' 
The time is short. 

A few years, and these remnants of a former age will no 
longer be seen. Then we shall indulge in unavailing regrets 
for our present apathy ; for how can the ingenuous mind look 
upon the grave of an injured benefactor? How poignant 
the reflection, that the time for reparation and atonement has 



PENSIOIS'ERS' MIJSTEK.- 185 

gone forever ! In wliat bitterness of soul shall we look back 
upon the infatuation which shall have cast aside an oppor- 
tunity which can never return, to give peace to our con- 
sciences ! 

We shall then endeavor to stifle our convictions, by empty 
honors to their bones. We shall raise high the monument, 
and trumpet loud their deeds, but it will be all in vain. It 
can not warm the hearts which shall have sunk cold and com- 
fortless to the earth. This is no illusion. How often do we 
see in our public gazettes a pompous display of honors to 
the memory of some veteran patriot, who was suffered to 
linger out his latter days in unregarded penury ! 

" How proud we can press to the funeral array 
Of him whom we shunned in his sickness and sorrow ; 

And bailiffs may seize his last blanket to-day, 

Whose pall shall be borne up by heroes to-morrow." 

We are profuse in our expressions of gratitude to the 
soldiers of the revolution. We can speak long and loud in 
their praise, but when asked to bestow something substantial 
upon them, we hesitate and palter. To them we owe every- 
thing, even the soil which we tread, and the air of freedom 
which we breathe. Let us not turn them houseless from 
habitations which they erected, and refuse them even a pit- 
tance from the exuberant fruits of their own labors. 



Ex. CXYL—PBNSIONBBS' MUSTER, A UG. 3, 1807. 

They once marched in glory — their banners were streaming, 
With the glance of the sunbeam their armor was gleaming ; 
Then hope swelled their bosoms ; then firm was their tread — 
And round them the garlands of victory were spread. 

Then little they dreamed that the country they saved — 
That the country for whom every danger they braved, 
Would forget their desert when old age should come on, 
And leave them forsaken — their comforts all gone. 

They now march in glory — still memory sheds 
The brightest of halos around their gray heads ; 
Though faltering the footstep, though rayless the eye, 
Remembrance still dwells on the days long gone by. 



186 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE. 

Yes ; saviours and sires ! though the pittance be small 
Which your country awards, and that pittance your all; 
Though the cold hand of poverty press on your frames, 
Yet your children shall bless you, and boast of your names. 

And when life with its toil and afflictions shall cease, 
Oh ! then may you hail the bright angel of peace ; 
Then freemen shall weep o'er the veteran's grave, 
And around it the laurel and cypress shall wave. 



Ex. QXVll.— REMONSTRANCE AGAINST THE WAR OF\%l%-\^. 

Speecli in Congress, Dec. 10, 1811. 

JOHN KANDOLPH. 

I KNOW not how gentlemen calling themselves rei^ubli- 
cans can advocate such a war. What was their doctrine in 
1798 and '9, when the command of the army — that highest 
of all possible trusts in any government, be the form what it 
may, — was reposed in the bosom of the father of his coun- 
try ; in the sanctuary of a nation's love ; the only hope that 
never came in vain ! Republicans Avere then unwilling to 
trust a standing army even to his hands, who had given proof 
that he was above all human temptation. Where now is 
the revolutionary hero to whom you are about to confide this 
sacred trust ? To whom will you confide the charge of lead- 
ing the flower of our youth to the heights of Abraham ? 
When Washington himself was at the head, did you show 
such reluctance, feel such scruples ; and are you now noth- 
ing loth, fearless of every consequence ? 

Imputations of British influence have been uttered against 
the opponents of the war. Against whom are these charges 
brought ? Against men who, in the war of the Revolution, 
were in the councils of the nation, or fighting the battles 
of your country ! Strange that we should have no objection 
to any other people or government, civilized or savage, in 
the whole world, than the British ! The great autocrat of 
all the Russias receives the homage of our high considera- 
tion. The dey of Algiers and his divan of pirates are very 
civil, good sort of people, with whom we find no difficulty 
in maintaining the relations of peace and amity. " Turks, 



KEMOI^STEANCE AGAINST THE WAE. 187 

Jews and Infidels," "barbarians and savages of every clime 
and color, are welcome to our arms. With chiefs of ban- 
ditti, negro or mulatto, we can treat and can trade. Name, 
however, but England, and all our antipathies are up in 
arms against her. 

Against whom ? Against those whose blood runs in our 
veins; in common with whom we claim Shakspeare, and 
Newton, and Chatham for our countrymen ; whose form of 
government is the freest on earth, our own only excej^ted; 
li'om whom every valuable principle in our own institutions 
has been borrowed — representation, jury trial, voting the 
supplies, writ of habeas eorpiis^ our whole civil and criminal 
jurisprudence; against our fellow Protestants, identical in 
blood, in language, in religion with ourselves. In what 
school did the worthies of our land, the Washingtons, Hen- 
rys, Hancocks, Franklins, Rutledges of America learn those 
principles of civil liberty which were so nobly asserted by 
their wisdom and valor? American resistance to British 
usurpation has not been more warmly cherished by these 
great men and their compatriots, than by Chatham and his 
illustrious associates in the British Parliament. I acknowl- 
edge the influence of a Shakspeare and a Milton upon my 
imagination, of a Locke upon my understanding, of a Sydney 
upon my political principles, of a Chatham upon qualities 
which I would to God I possessed in common with that illus- 
trious man ! of a Tillotson, a Sherlock, a Porteus, upon my 
religion. This is a British influence which I can never shake 

Before this miserable force of ten thousand men is raised 
to take Canada, I beg gentlemen to look at the state of de- 
fence at home ; to count the cost of the enterprise before it 
is set on foot, not when it may be too late — when the best 
blood of the country may be spilt, and nought but empty 
cofiers left to defray the expense. Once more, I beseech gen- 
tlemen, before they run their heads against this post, Que- 
bec, to count the cost. 



188 PATEIOTIC ELOQUENCE. 

Ex. CXyiIl.~-IiBASOJVS FOE PROSECUTING THE WAR. 

Speech in. Congress, Dec. 12, 1811. 

JOHN C. CALHOUN.* 

Me. Speaker : There are many reasons why this country 
should never resort to war but for causes the most urgent and 
necessary. It is sufficient that, under a government like 
ours, none but such will justify it in the eye of the nation ; 
and were I not satisfied that such is our present cause, I cer- 
tainly would be no advocate of the proposition now before 
the house. 

Sir; I consider the war, should it ensue, justifiable and 
necessary by facts undoubted and universally admitted. The 
extent, duration, and character of the injuries received ; the 
failure of those peaceful means hitherto resorted to for the 
redress of our wrongs, is my proof that it is necessary. 
Why should I mention the impressment of our seamen ; dep- 
redation on every branch of our commerce, including the 
direct export trade, continued for years, and made under 
laws which professedly undertake to regulate our trade with 
other nations ; negotiation resorted to, time after time, till it 
has become hopeless ; the restrictive system persisted in, to 
avoid war, and in the vain expectation of returning jus- 
tice? The evil still grows, and in each succeeding year 
swells in extent and pretension beyond the preceding. The 
question, even in the opinion and admission of our opponents 
in this House, is reduced to this single point : which shall we 
do, abandon or defend our own commercial and maritime 
rights, and the personal liberties of our citizens employed in 
exerting them ? Sir, which alternative this House ought to 
embrace, it is not for me to say. I hope the decision is made 
already by a higher authority than the voice of any man. It 

* Mr. Calhoun had taken his seat in the House of Representatives for the 
first time about a month previous to the date of this speech, and had thus but 
just entered upon that long and influential public career which terminated only 
with his death, in March, 1850. His debut was made at a critical period in 
our history, when the crisis was just approaching which was to decide the 
question of a war with Great Britain or submission to her power ; he warmly 
espoused the war policy, and soon acquired that commanding position in po- 
litical Hfe which he ever afterwards retained. In after years his pernicious 
doctrine of " State Rights " was destined to work great injury to his country, 
and finally to plunge the Southern States into rebellion against the Federal 
government. Few men have left their mark more decidedly on the history 
of this country. 



REASONS FOR PROSECUTING THE WAR. 189 

is not for the human tongue to instil the sense of independ- 
ence and honor. This is the work of nature — a generous 
nature, that disdains tame submission to wrongs. 

The first argument of the gentleman from Virginia which 
I shall notice, is the unprepared state of the country. What- 
ever weight this argument might have in a question of im- 
mediate war, it surely has little in that of preparation for it. 
If our country is unprepared, let us remedy the evil as soon 
as possible. Let the gentleman submit his plan ; and if it is 
a reasonable one, I doubt not it will be supported by the 
House. We are next told of the expenses of the war, and 
that the people will not pay taxes. Why not ? Is it a want 
of capacity ? What ! with one million tons of shipping, a 
trade of near one hundred million dollars, manufactures of 
one hundred and fifty million dollars, and agriculture of 
twice that amount, shall we be told that the country wants 
capacity to raise and support ten or fifteen thousand addi- 
tional regulars ? 

No ; it has the ability ; that is admitted ; but will it have 
the disposition ? Shall we then utter this libel on the na- 
tion ? Where will be found proof of a fact so disgrace- 
ful? Is not the course a just and necessary one? If 
taxes should become necessary, I do not hesitate to say the 
people will pay cheerfully. I know of only one principle to 
make a nation great — ^to produce in this country not merely 
the form, but the whole spirit of union ; and that is, to pro- 
tect every citizen in the lawful pursuit of his business. He 
will then feel that he is backed by his government — that its 
arm is his arm, and he will rejoice in its increased strength 
and prosperity. This is the road that all great nations have 
trod. Protection and patriotism are reciprocal. 

The gentleman has not failed to touch on the calamity of 
war — that fruitful source of declamation by which pity be- 
comes the advocate of cowardice ; but I know not what we 
have to do with that subject. K the gentleman desires to re- 
press the gallant ardor of our countrymen by such topics, let 
me inform him that true courage regards only the cause, that 
it is just and necessary, and that it despises the pain and 
danger of war. If he really wishes to promote the cause of 
humanity, let his eloquence be addressed to Lord Wellesley 
or Mr. Percival, and not to the American Congress. Tell them, 
if they persist in such daring insult and injury to a neutral na- 
tion, that, however inclined to peace, it will be bound in honor 
and interest to resist ; that their patience and benevolence, 



190 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE. 

however great, will be exhausted ; that the calamity of war 
will ensue, and that they, in the opinion of wounded hu- 
manity, will be answerable for all its devastation and misery. 
Let melting pity, a regard to the interests of humanity, stay 
the hand of injustice, and my life on it, the gentleman will 
not find it difficult to call off his countrymen from the 
bloody scenes of war. 

Again, the gentleman is at a loss to account for what he 
calls our hatred of England. He asks, How can we hate 
the country of Locke, of Newton, Hampden and Chatham ; 
having the same language, and customs as ourselves, and de- 
scending from a common ancestry ? Sir, the laws of human 
affection are uniform. If we have so much to attach us to 
that country, powerful indeed must be the cause that has 
overpowered it. 



Ex. CX1X,—THB STAR-SPANGLED BANNER. 

FRANCIS SCOTT KEY. 

Oh ! say, can you see, by the dawn's early light. 

What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming ? 

Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous 
night, 
O'er the ramparts we watched were so gallantly stream- 
ing; 

And the rocket's red glare, the bombs bursting in air, 

Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there. 
Oh ! say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave 
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave ? 

On the shore, dimly seen through the mists of the deep, 
Where the foe's haughty host in dread silence reposes, 

What is that which the breeze, o'er the towering steep 
As it fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses ? 

Now it catches the gleam of the morning's first beam, 

In full glory reflected now shines on the stream. 

'Tis the star-spangled banner ; oh ! long may it wave 
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave. 

And where is that band, who so vauntingly swore 
That the havoc of war and the battle's confusion 



ON THE CONDUCT OF THE WAE. 191 

A home and a country should leave us no more ? 

Their blood has washed out their foul footsteps' pollution ; 
"No refuge could save the hireling and slave, 
From the terror of death and the gloom of the grave : 
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave 
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave. 

Oh ! thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand 
Between their loved home and the war's desolation ; 

Blest with victory and peace, may the heaven-rescued land 
Praise the power that has made and preserved us a nation. 

Then conquer we must, for our cause it is just, 

And this be our motto, In God is our trust. 

And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave 
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave. 



Ex. CXK.—ON THE CONDUCT OF THE WAR OF 1812-15. 

HENRY CLAY.* 

When the administration was striving, by the operation 
of peaceful measures, to bring Great Britain back to a sense 
of justice, the gentlemen of the opposition were for old- 
fashioned war. And, now they have got old-fashioned war, 
their sensibilities are cruelly shocked, and all their sym- 
pathies lavished upon the harmless inhabitants of the ad- 

* Mr. Clay is well known to have been one of the most successful of 
American orators, invariably captivating by his manner of delivery and style 
of composition, even when his hearers were not convinced by his reasoning. 
It may be well for young aspirants to distinction in public speaking to know 
what he regarded as the secret of his power. " I owe my success in life," he 
said, " to one single fact ; namely, that at an early age I commenced, and con- 
tinued for some years, the practice of daily reading and speaking the contents 
of some historical or scientific book." Acting on this hint, who need despair 
of achieving the same result ? 

Henry Clay was in active public life for fifty years ; probably a longer 
time than any other American statesman has been. His name is often united 
with those of Calhoun and Webster, all having been distinguished as orators 
and statesmen, all passing their lives in the public service, and all dying with- 
in the space of about two years — 1850-52. This triple loss was deeply felt 
by the nation, who knew that in the course of events it must be long before 
another such illustrious trio should arise tcr thread the tangled ways of polit- 
ical life together. A beautiful tribute to their memory will be found in its 
historical order in this book. 



192 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE, 

joining provinces. "What does a state of war present ? The 
united energies of one people arrayed against the combined 
energies of another ; a conflict in which each party aims to 
inflict all the injury it can, by sea and land, upon the terri- 
tories, property and citizens of the other, — subject only to 
the rules of mitigated war, practised by civilized nations. 
The gentlemen would not touch the continental provinces 
of the enemy ; nor, I presume, for the same reason, her pos- 
sessions in the West Indies. The same humane spirit would 
spare the seamen and soldiers of the enemy. The sacred 
person of his Majesty must not be attacked, for the learned 
gentlemen are quite familiar with the maxim that the King 
can do no wrong. Indeed, Sir, I know of no person upon 
whom we may make war but the author of the Orders in 
Council, or the Board of Admiralty, who authorize and reg- 
ulate the principle of impressment ! 

The disasters of the war admonish us, we are told, of the 
necessity of terminating the contest. If our achievements 
by land have been less splendid than those of our intrepid 
seamen by water, it is not because the American soldier is 
less brave. On the one element, organization, discipline, 
and a thorough knowledge of their duties exist on the part 
of the officers and their men. On the other, almost every- 
thing is yet to be acquired. We have, however, the conso- 
lation that our country abounds with the richest materials, 
and that in no instance, when engaged in action, have our 
arms been tarnished. 

An honorable peace is attainable only by an efficient war. 
My plan would be, to call out the ample resources of the 
country, give them a judicious direction, prosecute the war 
with the utmost vigor, strike wherever we can reach the 
enemy, at sea or on land, and negotiate the terms of a peace 
at Quebec or at Halifax. We are told that England is a 
proud and lofty nation, which, disdaining to wait for danger, 
meets it half way. Haughty as she is, we once triumphed 
over her; and if we do not listen to the counsels of timidity 
and despair, we shall again prevail. In such a cause, with | 
the aid of Providence, we must come out crowned with suc- 
cess ; but if we fail, let us fail like men, — lash ourselves to I 
our gallant tars and expire together in one common struggle, 
fighting for free trade and seamen's rights I 



EIGHT OP OPPOSITION?'. 193 

Ex. CXSl.— RIGHT OF OPPOSITION. 

Speech, in Congress, 1814. 

DANIEL WEBSTER.* 

All the evils which afflict the country are imputed to 
opposition. It is said to be owing to opposition that the 
war became necessary, and owing to opposition, also, that it 
has been prosecuted with no better success. This, Sir, is no 
new strain. It has been sung a thousand times. It is the 
constant tune of every weak and wicked administration. 
What minister ever yet acknowledged that the evils which 
fell on his country were the necessary consequences of his 
own incapacity, his own folly, or his own corruption ? What 
possessor of political power ever yet failed to charge the 
mischiefs resulting from his own measures upon those Avho 
had uniformly opposed those measures ? 

The people of the United States may well remember the 
administration of Lord North. He lost America to his coun- 
try, yet he could find pretences for throwing the odium upon 
his opponents. He could throw it upon those who had fore- 
warned him of consequences, and who had opposed him, at 
every stage of his disastrous policy, with all the force of 
truth, reason and talent. It was not his own weakness, his 
own ambition, his own love of arbitrary power, that disaf- 
fected the colonies. It was not the Tea Act, the Stamp Act, 
the Boston Port Bill, that severed the empire of Britain. 
Oh, no ! It was owing to no fault of Administration. It was 

* This speecli, apart from its intrinsic interest, is worthy of special notice 
as being the first formal one uttered by Daniel Webster on the floor of the 
House of Representatives, where he was destined so often to hold captive his 
entranced audience with those weighty sentences which, to use the words of 
a historian, " fell with all the force and sure aim of a trip-hammer." Many 
of his subsequent efforts are more brilliant, but the effect of this is said to 
have been " to demoHsh the pretences of the administration orators that it 
was the opposition who were to blame for the present state of affairs." He 
continues in an earnest appeal to Congress to make the American Navy their 
main dependence in the existing contest : " If the war must continue, go to 
the ocean. If you are seriously contending for maritime rights, go to the 
theatre where alone those rights can be defended. In protecting naval in- 
terests by naval means, you will arm yourselves with the whole power of na- 
tional sentiment, and may command the whole abxmdance of national re- 
sources." Thus did his far-seeing wisdom point out the true stronghold of our 
national glory, which the government was so slow to acknowledge and to take 
advantage of. 

9 



194 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE. 

the work of Opposition. It was the impertinent boldness of 
Chatham, the idle declamation of Fox, the unseasonable sar- 
casm of Barre. These men, and men like them, would not 
join the minister in his American war. They would not 
give the name and character of wisdom to what they believed 
to be the extreme of folly. They would not pronounce those 
measures just and honorable which their principles led them 
to condemn. They foresaw the end of the minister's war, 
and pointed it out plainly, both to him and to the country. 
He persisted in his course, and the result is in history. 

Important as I deem it. Sir, to discuss, on all proper occa- 
sions, the policy of the measures at present pursued, it is 
still more important to maintain the right of such discussion 
in its full and just extent. Sentiments lately sprung up, and 
now growing popular, render it necessary to be explicit on 
this point. It is the ancient and constitutional right of this 
people to canvass public measures, and the merits of public 
men. It is a home-bred right, a fireside privilege. It has 
ever been enjoyed in every house, cottage and cabin, in the 
nation. It is not to be drawn into controversy. It is as 
undoubted as the right of breathing the air and of walking 
on the earth. Belonging to private life as a right, it belongs 
to public life as a duty ; and it is the last duty which those 
whose representative I am shall find me to abandon. This 
high constitutional privilege I shall defend and exercise with- 
in this House, and without this House, and in all places; in 
time of war, in time of peace, and at all times. Living, I 
will assert it, dying, I will assert it ; and should I leave no 
other legacy to my children, by the blessing of God I will 
leave them the inheritance of free principles, and the example 
of a manly, independent and constitutional defence of them ! 



Ex. CXXII.— /S'OiVG^. 



JAMES GATES PERCIVAL. 



Ye sons of sires who fought^and bled 

For liberty and glory. 
Whose fame shall ever wider spread 

Till Time is bent and hoary — 
Awake to meet the invading foe I 

Rouse at the call of danger ! 



ADDEESS TO THE AEMY AT NEW OELEANS. 195 

Beat down again Ms standard low, 
And backward hurl the stranger ! 

They knew no fear, those sires of old — 

'Mid swords and bayonets clashing, 
Still high they bore their banner's fold, 

Its stars like lightnings flashing. 
Be like those sires ! With freeborn might 

Renew the deeds of story ! 
Who lives, shall win a wreath of light — 

Who falls, shall sleep in glory ! 



Ez. CXXm.— ADDRESS TO THE ARMY AT NEW ORLEANS, 

DECEMBER 18, 1814. 

ANDREW JACKSON.* 

Fellow Citizens and Soldiees : — The general command- 
ing in chief would not do justice to the noble ardor that has 
animated you in the hour of danger, he would not do j ustice 
to his own feelings, if he suffered the example you have 
shown to pass without public notice. Inhabitants of an opu- 
lent commercial town, you have, by a spontaneous effort, 
shaken off the habits which are created by wealth, and shown 
that you are resolved to deserve the blessings of fortune, by 
bravely defending them. Long strangers to the perils of 
war, you have emboldened yourselves to face them with the 
cool countenance of veterans ; — with motives of disunion 
that might have operated on some minds, you have forgotten 
the differences of language and prejudice of national pride, 

* This address was read at the close of a military review held about three 
weeks before the battle of New Orleans, which virtually closed the war of 
1812-15. It is supposed to have been penned by Edward Livingston, an 
eminent New York lawyer, then residmg in Louisiana, and a valued friend 
and supporter of General Jackson. The biographer of the latter remarks : 
" This address was Jackson's spirit in Livingston's language. The manu- 
script, in the handwriting of Edward Livingston, still exists." 

General Jackson, with many striking peculiarities of manner and character, 
was the idol of his army and the nation. He was successful in war, and con- 
ducted the Administration as President for eight years with such inflexible 
vigor and determination as commanded the respect alike of friends and ene- 
mies. Had it not been for his promptness and decision, the Rebellion of 1861 
would have begun in 1833, when an attempt was made by South Carolina, 
under the name of Nullification, to resist the government of the United 
States. 



196 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE. 

and united with a cordiality that does honor to your under- 
standing as well as to your patriotism. 

Natives of the United States ! They are the oppressors 
of your infant political existence with whom you are to con- 
tend — they are the men your fathers fought and conquered, 
whom you are now to oppose. 

Descendants of Frenchmen ! K'atives of France ! They 
are English ; — the hereditary, the eternal enemies of your 
ancient country — the invaders of that you have adopted — 
who are your foes. 

Spaniards ! remember the conduct of your allies at St. 
Sebastian's, and recently at Pensacola, and rejoice that you 
have an opportunity of avenging the brutal injuries inflicted 
by men who dishonor the human race. 

Citizens of Louisiana ! the General commanding in chief 
rejoices to see the spirit that animates you, not only for your 
honor, but for your safety ; for Avhatever had been your con- 
duct or wishes, his duty would have led, and will now lead 
him, to confound the citizen unmindful of his rights with 
the enemy he ceases to oppose. Now, leading men who 
know their rights and who are determined to defend them, 
he salutes you as brethren in arms, and has now a new mo- 
tive to exert all his faculties, which shall be strained to the 
utmost in your defence. Continue with the energy you have 
begun with, and he promises you not only safety, but victory 
over the insolent enemy who insulted you by an affected 
doubt of your attachment to the Constitution of your coun- 
try. 

Soldiers ! The President of the United States shall be 
informed of your conduct on the present occasion, and the 
voice of the Representatives of the American nation shall ap- 
plaud your valor, as your General now praises your ardor. 
The enemy is near. His sails cover the lakes. But the brave 
are united ; and if he finds us contending among ourselves, 
it will be for the prize of valor, and fame, its noblest reward. 



Ex. GTKIY.— RETROSPECTIVE VIEW OF THE WAR Oi^ 1812-15. 

HENRY CLAY. 

We are asked. What have we gained by the war ? I 
liave shown that we have lost nothing in rights, territory, 



EETEOSPECTIVE YIETV OF THE WAE. 197 

or honor ; nothing for which we- ought to have contended, 
according to the principles of the gentlemen on the other 
side, or aocordins; to our own. Have we stained nothins^ bv 
the war ? Let any man look at the degraded condition of 
this country before the war, the scorn of the universe, the 
contempt of ourselves, and tell me if we have gained noth- 
ing by the war ? What is our present situation ? Respecta- 
bility and character abroad, security and confidence at home. 
If we have not obtained, in the opinion of some, the full 
measure of retribution, our character and constitution are 
placed on a solid basis never to be shaken. 

The glory acquired by our gallant tars, by our Jacksons 
and our Browns on the land, — is that nothing ? True, we 
had our vicissitudes ; there were humiliating events which the 
patriot can not review without deep regret; but the great 
account, when it comes to be balanced, will be found vastly 
in our favor. Is there a man who would obliterate from the 
proud pages of our history the brilliant achievements of Jack- 
son, Brown and Scott, and the host of heroes on land and sea, 
whom I can not enumerate ? Is there a man who could not 
desire a participation in the national glory acquired by the 
war ? Yes, national glory ^ which, however the expression 
may be condemned by some, must be cherished by every 
genuine patriot. 

What do I mean by national glory ? Glory such as Hull, 
Jackson and Perry have acquired. And are gentlemen in- 
sensible to their deeds — to the value of them in animating 
the country in the hour of peril hereafter ? Did the battle 
of Thermopylse preserve Greece but once ? While the Mis- 
sissippi continues to bear the tributes of the iron mountains 
and the Alleghanies to her Delta, and to the Gulf of Mexico, 
the eighth of January shall be remembered, and the glory 
of that day shall stimulate future patriots, and nerve the arms 
of unborn freemen in driving the presumptuous invader from 
our country's soil. 

Gentlemen may boast of their insensibility to feelings 
inspired by the contemplation of such events. But I would 
ask, does the recollection of Bunker Hill, Saratoga and 
Yorktown afford them no pleasure ? Every act of noble 
sacrifice to the country, every instance of patriotic devotion 
to her cause, has its beneficial influence. A nation's charac- 
ter is the sum of its splendid deeds ; they constitute one com- 
mon patrimony, the nation's inheritance. They awe foreign 
powers; they arouse and animate our own people. I love 



198 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE. 

true glory. It is this sentiment whicli ouglit to be cherished ; 
and in spite of cavils, and sneers, and attempts to put it down, 
it will finally conduct this nati-on to that height to which 
God and nature have destined it. 



Ex. CXIN.—THE AMERICAN FLAG. 



JOSEPH RODMAN DRAKE. 



"When Freedom, from her mountain height, 
Unfurled her standard to the air. 

She tore the azure robe of night, 
And set the stars of glory there ! 

She mingled with its gorgeous dyes 

The milky baldric of the skies, 

And striped its pure celestial white 

With streakings of the morning light ; 

Then from his mansion in the sun, 

She called her eagle-bearer down, 

And gave into his mighty hand 

The symbol of her chosen land ! 

Majestic monarch of the cloud ! 

Who rear'st aloft thy regal form, 
To hear the tempest trumping loud. 
And see the lightning-lances driven 

When stride the warriors of the storm, 
And rolls the thunder-drum of heaven ! 
Child of the sun ! to thee 'tis given 

To guard the banner of the free ; 
To hover in the sulphur smoke. 
To ward away the battle-stroke. 
And bid its Mendings shine afar, 
Like rainbows on the cloud of war — 

The harbingers of victory. 

Flag of the brave ! thy folds shall fly. 
The sign of hope and triumph high I 
When speaks the signal trumpet tone, 
And the long line comes gleaming on, 
(Ere yet the life-blood, warm and wet, 
Hath dimmed the glistening bayonet,) 



THE MISSOrEI COMPEOMISE. 199 

Each soldier's eye shall brightly turn 
To where thy meteor glories burn, 
And as his springing steps advance, 
Catch war and vengeance from the glance I 
And when the cannon's raouthings loud 
Heave in wild wreaths the battle shroud, 
And gory sabres rise and fall, 
Like shoots of flame on midnight's pall. 
There shall thy victor glances glow. 

And cowering foes shall sink beneath 
Each gallant arm, that strikes below 

That lovely messenger of death. 

Flag of the seas ! on ocean's wave 
Thy stars shall glitter o'er the brave, 
When Death, careering on the gale. 
Sweeps darkly round the bellied sail. 
And frightened waves rush wildly back, 
Before the broadside's reeling rack ; 
The dying wanderer of the sea. 
Shall look at once to heaven and thee, 
And smile to see thy splendors fly 
In triumph o'er his closing eye. 

Flag of the free heart's hope and home. 

By angel hands to valor given ! 
Thy stars have lit the welkin dome, 

And all thy hues were born in heaven. 
Forever float that standard sheet ! 

Where breathes the foe but falls before us. 
With Freedom's soil beneath our feet. 

And Freedom's banner floating o'er us ? — 



Ex. CXKVI.—THB MISSOURI COMPROMISE.^ 

speech in Congress, February, 1819. 

JAMES TALLMADGE. 

Mr. Speaker : My hold on life is probably as frail as 
that of any man who now hears me, but while that hold lasts, 

* We often hear of the " Missouri Compromise," but all do not fully undeiv 
stand what it was. The foUowing is a brief explanation of it : 



200 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE. 

my life shall be devoted to the freedom of man. If blood is 
necessary to extinguish any fire which I have assisted to 
kindle, while I regret the necessity, I shall not hesitate to 
contribute my own. The violence which gentlemen have 
resorted to on this subject will not move my purpose, nor 
drive me from my ground. I have the fortune and honor to 
stand here as the representative of freemen who possess in- 
telligence to know their rights, ancl who have the spirit to 
maintain them. I know the v/ill of my constituents, and, 
regardless of consequences, I will avow it. As their repre- 
sentative, I will proclaim their hatred to slavery in every 
shape. As their representative here will I hold my stand, 
till this floor, with the National Constitution which supports 
it, shall sink beneath me. If I am doomed to fall, I shall at 
least have the painful consolation of falling as a fragment of 
the ruins of my country. 

Missouri applied to Congress for admission as a State in Marcli, 1818; 
nothing material was done at that session ; at the next session, (1819), the bill 
for the admissiort of Missouri was taken up for consideration, and an amend- 
ment in the following words was proposed : " And provided, that the intro- 
duction of slavery or involuntary servitude be prohibited, except for the pun- 
ishment of crime whereof the party has been duly convicted ; and that all 
children, born within the said State after the admission thereof into the Union, 
shall be declared free at the age of twenty-five." After much excited discus- 
sion, the bill with that proviso failed to pass at that session ; at the next ses- 
sion, (1820), the bill being again before Congress, the following section was 
by way of compromise proposed in heu of the above-mentioned " proviso," 
namely : " Be it further enacted that, in all the territory ceded by France to 
the United States under the name of Louisiana, wldch lies north of thirty-six 
degrees thirty minutes north latitude^ except only such part thereof as is in- 
cluded within the limits of the State contemplated by this act, slavery and 
involuntary servitude, otherwise than in the punishment of cri7ne, tvhereof the 
party shall have been duly convicted, shall be, and is hereby, forever prohibit- 
ed. But any person escaping into the same, from whom labor or service is 
lawfully claimed in any State or Territory of the. United States, such fugitive 
may be lawfully reclaimed and conveyed to the person claiming his or her 
labor or service as aforesaid." After long and animated debate, the bill passed 
at that session with the section just mentioned as a part of it. This is what 
has since been known as " the Missouri Compromise.'''' 

The " repeal " of the Missouri Compromise is also frequently mentioned. 
A few words will explain this expression < 

At the session of Congress in 1854, a bill for the organization of the Terri- 
tory of Kansas was introduced, and after protracted and most earnest discus- 
sion, in that bill a section was inserted declaring " inoperative " (in other 
words repealing) the section just quoted from the Missouri Bill ; and thus the 
^'■Missouri Compromise'''' was '■'■repealed.'''' 

The students of American history will find, in the debates in Congress on 
the bills above mentioned, a vast fund of interesting and valuable informa- 
tion. 



THE MISSOIJEI COMPBOMISE. 201 

If it is not safe now to discuss slavery on this floor, if it 
can not now come before us as a proper subject for general 
legislation, what will be the result when it is spread through 
your widely-extended domain ? Its present threatening as- 
pect and the violence of its supporters, so far from inducing 
me to yield to its progress, prompt me to resist its march. 
Now is the time ! The extension of the evil must now be 
prevented, or the opportunity will be lost forever ! 

Look down the long vista of futurity ! See your empire, 
in extent unequalled, in advantageous situation without a 
parallel, occupying all the valuable part of our continent. 
Behold this extended empire inhabited by the hardy sons of 
America, — fi-eemen knowing their rights and inheriting the 
will to maintain them ; owners of the soil on which they 
live, and interested in the institutions which they labor to 
uphold ; with two oceans laving your shores and tributary 
to your pui-poses, bearing on their bosoms the commerce of 
your people, — compared to yours, the governments of Europe 
dwindle into insignificance, and the world has no parallel. 
But reverse the scene. People this fair domain with the 
slaves of your planters. Spread slavery, that bane of man, 
that abomination of heaven, over your extended empire ! 
You prepare its dissolution; you turn its accumulated 
strength into positive weakness ; you cherish a cancer in 
youi' breast ; you put a viper in your bosom ; you place a 
vulture on your heart. Your enemies will learn the source 
and the cause of your weakness. As often as external dan- 
gers shall threaten, or internal commotions await you, you 
will realize that by your own procurement you have placed 
amid your families and in the bosom of your country, a popu- 
lation at once the greatest cause of individual danger and of 
national weakness. With this defect, your government must 
crumble to pieces, and your people become the scoff of the 
world. 

But we are told that any attempt to legislate upon this 
subject is a violation of that faith and mutual Confidence upon 
which our Union was formed and our Constitution adopted. 
If the restriction were attempted to be enforced against any 
of the slave-holding States, parties in the adoption of the 
Constitution, this argunient might seem plausible. But it 
can have no application to a new district of country recently 
acquii'ed, never contemplated in the formation of the govern- 
ment, and not embraced in the mutual concessions and de- 
clared faith upon which the Constitution was agreed to. 
9* 



202 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE. 

As an evil brought upon us without our fault and before 
the formation of our government, through the sin of that na- 
tion from which we revolted, we must of necessity legislate 
upon this subject ; and it is our business so to legislate as 
never to encourage, but always to restrict it. 

You boast of the freedom of your institutions and your 
laws. You have proclaimed in the Declaration of Independ- 
ence that all men are created equal ; that they are endowed 
by their Creator with certain inalienable rights ; that among 
these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. And yet 
you have slaves in your country ! The enemies of your gov- 
ernment point to your inconsistencies, and blazon your al- 
leged defects. Confine slavery to the original slave-holding 
States, where you found it at the formation of your govern- 
ment, and you stand acquitted of these imputations. Allow 
it to pass into territories whence you have the lawful power 
to exclude it, and you take upon yourselves all these charges 
of inconsistency. 



Ex. CXXYIL—OUB COUNTRY. 

WILLIAM JEWETT PABODIE. 

Our country ! — 'tis a glorious land, 

With broad arms stretched from shore to shore ; 
The proud Pacific chafes her strand, 

She hears the dark Atlantic roar ; 
And nurtured on her ample breast 

How many a goodly prospect lies, 
In nature's wildest grandeur dressed, 

Enamelled with her loveliest dyes ! 

Rich praiiies, decked with flowers of gold, 

Like sunlit oceans roll afar ; 
Broad lakes her azure heavens behold, 

Reflecting clear each trembling star ; 
And mighty^ rivers, mountain-born, 

Go sweeping onward, dark and deep, 
Through forests, where the bounding fawn 

Beneath their sheltering branches leap. 

And, cradled 'mid her clustering hills. 
Sweet vales in dreamlike beauty hide, 



LIBEKTY AND GREATNESS. 203 

Where love tlie air with music fills, 

And calm content and peace abide. 
For Plenty here her fulness pours 

In rich profusion o'er the land, 
And, sent to seize her generous stores, 

There prowls no tyrant's hireling band. 

Great God ! we thank thee for this home, 

This bounteous birth-right of the free, 
Where wanderers from afar may come 

And breathe the air of liberty ! 
•Still may her flowers untrampled spring, 

Her harvests wave, her cities rise ; 
And yet, till time shall fold her wing. 

Remain earth's loveliest paradise ! 



Ex. CXKYllL— LIB FUTY AND GREATNESS. 

HUGH S. LEGARE.* 

The name of Republic is inscribed upon the most im- 
perishable monuments of the species, and it is probable that 
it will continue to be associated, as it has been in all past 
ages, with whatever is heroic in character, sublime in genius, 
elegant and brilliant in the cultivation of arts and letters. 
It would not have been difficult to prove that the base hire- 
lings who, in this age of legitimacy and downfall, have so 
industriously inculcated a contrary doctrine, have been com- 
pelled to falsify history and abuse reason. I might have 
'• called up antiquity from the old schools of Greece," to show 
that these apostles of despotism would have passed at Athens 
for barbarians and slaves. I might have asked triumphantly, 
what land had ever been visited with the influences of liber- 
ty, that did not flourish like the spring ? What people had 
ever worshipped at her altars, without kindling with a loftier 
spirit, and putting forth more noble energies ? Where she had 
ever acted, that her deeds had not been heroic ? Where she 

* Pronounced Legree. Mr. Legare was a citizen of South Carolina, dis- 
tinguished for his legal attainments, which procured him the position of Attor- 
ney-General of the United States, and for his brilliancy as a writer. He was 
strongly opposed to Mr. Calhoun's scheme of " nullification." 



204 PATEIOTIC EL'6qUENCE. 

had ever spoken, that her eloquence had not been triumphant 
and sublime ? It might have been demonstrated that a state 
of society in which nothing is obtained by patronage, noth- 
ing is yielded to the accidents of birth and fortune, where 
those who are already distinguished must exert themselves 
lest they be speedily eclipsed by their inferiors, and these in- 
feriors are, by every motive, stimulated to exert themselves 
that they may become distinguished, and where, the lists 
being open to the whole world without any partiality or ex- 
clusion, the champion v/ho bears off the prize must have 
tasked his prowess to the very uttermost, and proved himself 
the first of a thousand competitors, is necessarily more fa- 
vorable to a bold, vigorous and manly way of thinking and 
acting than any other. I should have asked with Longinus, 
Who but a republican could have spoken the philippics of 
Demosthenes ? and what has the patronage of despotism 
ever done to be compared with the spontaneous productions 
of the Attic, the Roman and the Tuscan muse ? 

With respect to ourselves, would it not be enough to say 
that we live under a form of government and in a state 
of society to which the world has never yet exhibited a 
parallel ? Is it then nothing to be free ? How many na- 
tions, in the whole annals of human kind, have proved them- 
selves worthy of being so ? Is it nothing that we are repub- 
licans ? Were all men as enlightened, as brave, as proud as 
they ought to be, would they suffer themselves to be insulted 
with any other title ? Is it nothing that so many independ* 
ent sovereignties should be held together in such a confedera- 
tion as ours ? What does history teach us of the difficulty 
of instituting and maintaining such a polity, and of the 
glory that of consequence ought to be given to those who 
enjoy its advantages in so much perfection and on so grand 
a scale ? For can anything be more striking and sublime 
than the idea of an Imperial Republic, spreading over an 
extent of territory more immense than the empire of the 
Caesars in the accumulated conquests of a thousand years ; 
without prefects or proconsuls or publicans ; founded in the 
maxims of common sense ; employing within itself no arms 
but those of reason, and known to its subjects only by the 
blessings it bestows or perpetuates, yet capable of directing, 
against a foreign foe, all the energies of a military despotism ; 
a republic, in which men are completely insignificant, and 
principles and laws exercise, throughout its vast dominions, 
a peaceful and irresistible sway, blending in one divine bar- 



THE AMEEICAX EE VOLUTION. 205 

mony such various harbits and conflicting opinions, and min- 
gling in our institutions the light of philosophy with all that 
is dazzling in the associations of heroic achievement, and ex- 
tended domination, and deep-seated and formidable power ? 



Ex. CXXLX.—TEE AMERICAN REVOLUTION. 

JOHN QUIXCT ADAMS.* 

At the opening of the American revolution. Great Britain 
had been victorious in her long and bloody conflict with 
France. She had expelled her rival totally from the conti- 
nent over which, bounded herself by the Mississippi, she was 
thence to hold divided empire only with Spain. She had ac- 
quired undisputed control over the Indian tribes, still tenant- 
ing the forests unexplored by European man. She had es- 
tablished an uncontested monopoly of the commerce of all 
her colonies. But forgetting all the warnings of preceding 
ages — forgetting the lessons written in the blood of her own 
childi'en, through centuries of departed time — she undertook 
to tax the people of the colonies loithout their consent. 

Resistance — instantaneous, unconcerted, sympathetic, in- 
flexible resistance — like an electric shock startled and roused 
the- people of all the English colonies on this continent. 

This was the first signal of the E"orth American Union. 
The struggle was for chartered rights, for English liberties, 
for the cause of Algernon Sidney and John Hampden, for 
trial by jury, for habeas corpus and Magna Charta. 

But the English lawyers had decided that parliament was 
omnipotent ; and parliament in their omnipotence, instead of 
trial by jury and the habeas corpus, enacted admiralty 
courts in England to try Americans for offences charged 
against them as committed in America ; instead of the privi- 
leges of Magna Charta, nullified the charter itself of Mas- 
sachusetts Bay; shut up the port of ^Boston; sent armies 
and navies to keep the peace, and teach the colonies that 
John Hampden was a rebel, and Algernon Sidney a traitor. 

* Sixth President of the United States. Mr. Adams, like his father, oc- 
cupied many positions of trust and distinction, including that of ambassador 
at several European courts. His son, Charles Francis Adams, our present 
minister to England, is the third of his family who has represented our coun- 
try at the court of St. James. 



206 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE. 

English liberties had failed them. From the omnipotence 
of parliament the colonists appealed to the rights of man and 
the omnipotence of the God of battles. Union! union! 
was the instinctive and simultaneous cry throughout the 
land. Their Congress, assembled at Philadelphia, once — 
twice had petitioned the king; had remonstrated to par- 
liament ; had addressed the people of Britain for the rights 
of Englishmen — in vain. Fleets and armies, the blood of Lex- 
ington, and the fires of Charleston and Falmouth, had been 
the answer to petition, remonstrance and address. 

Independence was declared. The colonies were trans- 
formed into States. Their inhabitants were proclaimed to be 
one people^ renouncing all allegiance to the British crown ; 
all claims to chartered rights as Englishmen. Therefore 
their charter was the Declaration of Independence. Their 
rights, the natural rights of mankind. Their government, 
such as should be instituted by themselves, under the solemn 
'mutual pledges of perpetual union, founded on the self-evi- 
dent truths proclaimed in the Declaration. 

The Declaration of Independence was issued in the ex- 
cruciating agonies of a civil war, and by that war inde- 
pendence was to be maintained. Six long years the war 
raged with unabated fury, and the Union was yet no more 
than a mutual pledge of faith, and a mutual participation 
of common sufferings and common dangers. 

At last, the omnipotence of the British parliament was 
vanquished. The independence of the United States was not 
granted, but recognized. The nation had assumed that sepa- 
rate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of na- 
ture's God entitled it among the powers of the earth. 



Ex. CXXX.~ODJE! COMPOSED AFTER LISTENING TO THE 
ORATION, OF WHICH THE ABOVE FORMS A PART. 

" The ark of our covenant is the Declaration of Independence ; our Mount 
Ebal, the Articles of Confederation ; our Gerizim, the Constitution." 

J. Q. ADAMS. 
WILLIAM CUTTER. 

Peiests of this holy land. 

Bear on the hallowed ark, 
Blest symbol of the God at hand, 

Our guide through deserts dark. 



THE EXAMPLE OF AMEEICA. 207 

There, by God's finger graven 

Is our eternal creed, 
Drawn from tlie liturgy of heaven, 

In Freedom's hour of need. 

Escaped from that dread curse 

That lowered o'er Ebal's brow, 
Threatening with stern and dark reverse 

The shrine at which we bow, — 
Oh ! shun with pious awe 

Corruption's least approach, . 
Kor on that sacred fount of law 

Let aught profane encroach. 

Round Gerizim's fair hill 

Where first our Union rose. 
In peace and glory clustered still, 

Our growing tribes repose. 
There may our children rest, 

Till Time himself shall die ; 
Still with that heavenly presence blest, 

Our Ark of Liberty. 



Ex. CXXXl.—TES EXAMPLE OF AMERICA. 



FRANCIS JEFFRET.* 

How absurd are the sophisms and predictions by which 
the advocates of existing abuses have, at all times, endeavor- 
ed to create a jealousy and apprehension of reform ! You 
can not touch the most corrupt and imbecile government 
without involving society in disorders at once frightful and 
contemptible, and reducing all things to the level of an in- 
secure, and ignoble, and bloody equality ! Such are the rea- 
sonings by which we are now to be persuaded that liberty is 
incompatible with private happiness or national prosperity. 
To these we need not now answer in words, or by reference 
to past and questionable examples ; but we put them down 

* Afterwards Lord Jeffrey ; a brilliant British essayist and reviewer. 



208 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE. 

at once, and trample them contemptuously to the earth, by 
a short appeal to the existence and condition of America / 
What is the country of the universe, I would now ask, in 
which property is most sacred, or industry most sure of its 
reward ? Where is the authority of law most omnipotent ? 
Where are intelligence and wealth most widely diffused, and 
most rapidly progressive ? Where, but in America ? — in 
America, Avho laid the foundation of her Republican Consti- 
tution in a Adolent radical sanguinary Revolution ; America, 
with her fundamental Democracy, made more unmanageable, 
and apparently more hazardous, by being broken up into I 
do not know how many confederated and independent De- 
mocracies ; America, with universal suffrage, and yearly elec- 
tions, with a free and unlicensed press, without an establish- 
ed Priesthood, an hereditary Nobility or a permanent Ex- 
ecutive, — with all that is combustible, in short, and pregnant 
with danger on the hypothesis of Tyranny, and without one 
of the checks or safeguards by which alone, they contend, 
the benefits or the very being of society can be maintained ! 
There is something at once audacious and ridiculous in 
maintaining such doctrines, in the face of such experience. 
Nor can anything be founded on the novelty of these insti- 
tutions, or the pretence that they have not yet been fairly put 
to their trial. America has gone on prospering under them 
for forty years, and has exhibited a picture of iminterrupted, 
rapid, unprecedented advances in wealth, population, intelli- 
gence and concord ; while all the arbitrary governments of 
the Old World have been overrun with bankruptcies, con- 
spiracies, rebellions and revolutions ; and are at this moment 
trembling in the consciousness of their insecurity, and vainly 
endeavoring to repress irrepressible discontents by confede- 
rated violence and terror. 



Ex. GXXXU.—TEE 8HIP OF STATE. 



H. W. LONGFELLOW. 



Sail on, sail on, O Ship of State ! 
Sail on, O Union, strong and great ! 
Humanity, with all its fears, 
With all the hopes of future years, 



BUNKEK HILL MONUMENT. 209 

Is hanging breatliless on thy fate ! 

We know what Master laid thy keel, 

What Workmen wrought thy ribs of steel, 

Who made each mast, and sail, and rope ; 

What anvils rang, what hammers beat, 

In what a forge and what a heat 

Were forged the anchors of thy hope ! 

Fear not each sudden sound and shock, — 

'Tis of the wave, and not the rock ; 

'Tis but the flapping of the sail, ~ 

And not a rent made by the gale ! 

In spite of rock and tempest roar, 

In spite of false lights on the shore, 

Sail on, nor fear to breast the sea ! 

Our hearts, our hopes, are all with thee. 

Our hearts, our hopes, our prayers, our tears, " 

Our faith triumphant o'er our fears, 

Are all with thee, are all with thee ! 



Q^SXYTL.— BUNKER HILL MONUMENT. 
From an Address delivered at the laying of its corner-stone, June 17, 1825. 

DANIEL WEBSTER. 

We come, as x4.mericans, to mark a spot which must ever 
be dear to us and our posterity. We wish that whosoevei* 
in all coming time shall turn his eye hither, may behold that 
the place is not undistinguished where the first great bat- 
tle of the Revolution was fought. We wish that this struc- 
ture may proclaim the magnitude and importance of that 
event to every class and every age. We wish that infancy 
may learn the purpose of its erection from maternal lips, 
and that weary and withered age may behold it and be 
solaced by the recollections which it suggests. We Avish 
that labor may look up here, and be proud in the midst 
of its toil. We wish that in those days of disaster which, 
as they come upon all nations, must be expected to come 
upon us also, desponding patriotism may turn its eyes hith- 
erward, and be assured that the foundations of our national 
power still stand strong. We wish that this colurnxU, rising 
toward Heaven among the pointed spires of so many tern- 



210 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE. 

pies dedicated to God, may contribute also to produce, in 
all minds, a pious feeling of dependence and gratitude. We 
wish, finally, that the last object on the sight of him who 
leaves his native shore, and the first to gladden his who 
revisits it, may be something which shall remind him of 
the liberty and the glory of his country. Let it rise till it 
meet the sun in its coming ; let the earliest light of the 
morning gild it, and parting day linger and play on its 
summit. 

We hold still among us some of those who were active 
agents in the scenes of 1775, and who are now here from 
every quarter of 'New England, to visit once more, and un- 
der circumstances so afiecting, this renowned theatre of their 
courage and patriotism; 

Venerable men ! you have come down to us from a for- 
mer generation. You are now where you stood, fifty years 
ago this very hour, with your brothers and your neighbors, 
shoulder to shoulder, in the strife for your country. Be- 
hold, how altered ! You hear now no roar of hostile can- 
non, you see no mixed volumes of smoke and flame rising from 
burning Charlestown. The ground strewed with the dead and 
the dying ; the impetuous charge, the steady and successful 
repulse ; the loud call to repeated assault ; the summoning 
of all that is manly to repeated Resistance ; a thousand bo- 
soms freely and fearlessly bared in an instant to whatever 
of terror there may be in war and death ; — all these you have 
witnessed, but you witness them no more. All is peace. 
The heights of yonder metropolis, its towers and roofs, which 
you then saw filled with wives and children and countrymen 
in distress and terror, and looking with unutterable emotions 
for the issue of the combat, have presented you to-day with 
the sight of its whole happy population, come out to wel- 
come and greet you with a universal jubilee. All is p^ace; 
and God has granted you the sight of your country's hap- 
piness ere you slumber in the grave forever. He has al- 
lowed you to behold and to partake the reward of your 
patriotic toils ; and he has allowed us, your sons and coun- 
trymen, to meet you here, and in the name of the present 
generation, in the name of your country, in the name of lib- 
erty to thank you ! May the Father of all mercies smile 
upon your remaining years, and bless them ! And when you 
shall here have exchanged your embraces ; when you shall 
once more have pressed the hands which have been so often 
extended to give succor in adversity, or grasped in the exult- 



ODE FOR THE FOURTH OF JULY. 211 

ation of victory ; then look abroad into this lovely land which 
your young valor defended, and mark the happiness with 
which it is tilled ; yea, look abroad into the whole earth, and 
see what a name you have contributed to give to your coun- 
try, and what a praise you have added to freedom, and then 
rejoice in the sympathy and gratitude which beam upon your 
last days from the improved condition of mankind. 



Ex. CTKXIV,—ODIJ FOR THE FOURTH OF JULY. 

CHARLES SPRAGUE. 

To the sages who spoke, to the heroes who bled, 

To the day and the deed, strike the harp-strings of glory ! 
Let the song of the ransomed remember the dead, 
And the tongue of the eloquent hallow the story. 
O'er the bones of the bold 
Be that story long told. 
And on Fame's golden tablets their triumphs unrolled, 
Who on Freedom's green hills Freedom's banner unfurled, 
And the beacon-fire raised that gave light to the world. 

They are gone — mighty men ! and they sleep in their fame ; 

Shall we ever forget them ? Oh, never ! no, never ! 
Let our sons learn from us to embalm each great name, 
And the anthem send down — Independence forever ! 
Wake, wake, heart and tongue ! 
Keep the theme ever young ; 
Let their deeds through the long line of ages be sung. 
Who on Freedom's green hills Freedom's banner unfurled, 
And the beacon-fire raised that gave light to the world. 



Ex. C^XKSf.— PARTING ADDRESS TO LA FAYETTE, SEPTEM- 
BER 1th, 1825.* 

John Quinct Adams. 
Geisteral : The ship is now prepared for your reception, 
and equipped for sea. From the moment of her departure 

* We hope that no American student is ignorant of the debt of gratitude 



212 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE. 

the prayers of millions will ascend to Heaven that her pas- 
sage may be prosperous, and your return to the bosom of 
your iamily as propitious to your happiness as your visit to 
the scene of your youthful glory has been to that of the 
American people. 

Go, then, our beloved friend ; return to the land of bril- 
liant genius, of generous sentiment, of heroic valor ; to that 
beautiful France, the nursing mother of the twelfth Louis 
and the fourth Henry ; the native soil of Bayard and Cblig- 
ni, of Turenne and Catinat, of Fenelon and D'Auguesseau. 
In that illustrious catalogue of names which she claims as 
of her children, and with honest pride holds up to the admi- 
ration of other nations, the name of La Fayette has already 
for centuries been enrolled. And it shall henceforth burnish 
into brighter fame ; for if in after days a Frenchman shall 
be called to indicate the character of his nation by that of 
one individual, during the age in Avhich we live, the blood 
of lofty patriotism shall mantle in his cheek, the fire of con- 
scious virtue shall sparkle in his eye, and he shall pronounce 
the name of La Fayette. Yet we too, and our children, in 
life and after death, shall claim you for our own. You are 
ours by that more than patriotic self-devotion with which 
you flew to the aid of our fathers at the crisis of our fate. 
Ours by that long series of years in which you have cher- 
ished us in your regard. Ours by that unshaken sentiment 
of gratitude for your services which is a precious portion of 
our inheritance. Ours by that tie of love, stronger than 
death, which has linked your name for the endless ages of 
time with the name of Washington. 

At the painful moment of parting from you, we take 
comfort in the thought that wherever you may be, to the 
last pulsation of your heart, our country will be ever j)res- 
ent to your affections ; and a cheering consolation assures 

owed by our country to the Marquis de La Fayette — a Freneli nobleman v/ho 
volunteered his assistance in the struggle for freedom, in the days when our 
prospects looked darkest and most hopeless. He purchased and fitted out a 
vessel for the American naval service at his own expense, and on arriving in 
this country was at once appointed Major General, and served as aide to Gen. 
Washington, with whom he was on terms of the closest intimacy. In 1824-5 
he revisited the United States, passing through each of the twenty-four 
States and all the principal cities, and was everywhere received with heartfelt 
enthusiasm. As his own immense fortune had been confiscated and lost in 
the French Revolution, Congress voted him during this visit a grant of 
$200,000 and a tovmship of land, in recognition of his services in our Revo- 
lutionary War, which had been given without pay or rewai'd. 



REPLY TO PRESIDENT ADAMS, 213 

US that we are not called to sorrow most of all that we shall 
see your face no more. We shall indulge the pleashig an- 
ticipation of beholding our friend again. In the mean time, 
speaking in the name of the whole people of the United 
States, and at a loss only for language to give utterance to 
that feeling of attachment with which the heart of the na- 
tion beats, as the heart of one man, — I bid you a reluctant 
and affectionate farewell. 



Ex. CXXXYl.—HUFZY TO PRESIDENT ADAMS. 

La Fayette. 

Amidst all my obligations to the general government, 
and particularly to you, Sir, its respected Chief Magistrate, 
I have most thankfully to acknowledge the opportunity 
given me, at this solemn and painful moment, to present the 
people of the United States with a parting tribute of pro- 
found, inexpressible gratitude. 

To have been, in the infant and critical days of these 
States, adopted by them as a favorite son, — to have partici- 
pated in the toils and perils of our unspotted struggle for 
independence, freedom and equal rights — to have received 
at every stage of the Revolution and during forty years 
after that period, from the people of the United States and 
their representatives at home and abroad, continual marks 
of their confidence and kindness, has been the pride, the en- 
couragement, the support of a long and eventful life. 

But how could I find words to acknowledge that series 
of welcomes, those unbounded and universal displays of 
public affection, which have marked each step, each hour, of 
a twelve months' progress through the twenty^four States, 
and which, while they overwhelm my heart with grateful 
delight, have most satisfactorily evinced the concurrence of 
the people in the kind testimonies, in the immense favors be- 
stowed on me by the several branches of their representa- 
tives, in every part and at the central seat of the confederacy ? 

Yet gratifications still higher await me. In the wonders 
of creation and improvement that have met my enchanted 
eye, in the unparalleled and self-felt happiness of the people, 
in their rapid prosperity and ensured security, public and 
private, in a practice of good order, the appendage of true 



214 PATEIOTIC ELOQUENCE. 

freedom, and a national good sense, the final arbiter of all 
difficulties, I have had proudly to recognize a result of the 
republican principles for which we fought, and a glorious 
demonstration of the superiority over degrading aristocracy 
or despotism, of popular institutions founded on the plain 
rights of man, where the local rights of every section are 
preserved under a constitutional bond of union. The cher- 
ishing of that union between the States, as it has been the 
farewell entreaty of our great paternal Washington, and will 
ever be the dying prayer of every American patriot, so it 
has become the sacred pledge of the emancipation of the 
world, an object in which I am happy to observe that the 
American people show themselves every day more anxiously 
interested. 

In conclusion I can only say, God bless you. Sir, and all 
who surround us. God bless the American people, each of 
their States, and the Federal government. Accept this pa- 
triotic farewell of an overflowing heart ; such will be its 
last throb when it ceases to beat. 



Ex. CXXXYII.— iV^]^ ENGLAND AND THE UNION. 

S. S. Prentiss. 

Glorious New England ! thou art still true to thy an- 
cient fame, and worthy of thy ancestral honors. We have 
assembled in this far distant land to celebrate thy birthday. 
A thousand fond associations throng upon us, roused by the 
spirit of the hour. On thy pleasant valleys rest, like sweet 
dews of morning, the gentle recollections of our early life. 
Around thy hills and mountains cling, like gathering mists, 
the mighty memories of the Revolution. And, far away in 
the horizon of thy past, gleam, like thy own bright northern 
lights, the awful virtues of thy pilgrim sires ! 

But while we devote this day to the remembrance of our 
native land, we forget not that in which our happy lot is 
cast. We exult in the reflection, that though we count by 
thousands the miles that separate us from our birthplace, 
still our country is the same. We are no exiles, meeting upon 
the banks of a foreign river to swell its waters with our 
homesick tears. Here floats the same banner that rustled 



215 

over our boyish heads, except that its mighty folds are 
wider, and its glittering stars increased in number. 

The sons of New England are found in every State of 
the broad republic ! In the East, the South, and the un- 
bounded West, their blood mingles freely with every kin- 
dred current. * We have but changed our chamber in the 
paternal mansion. In all its rooms we are at home, and all 
who inhabit it are our brothers. To us the Union has but 
one domestic hearth. Its households gods are all the same. 
Upon us, then, peculiarly devolves the duty of feeding the 
fires upon that kindly hearth ; of guarding with pious care 
those sacred household gods. 

We can not do with less than the whole Union. To us 
it admits of no division. In the veins of our children flow 
Northern and Southern blood. How shall it be separated ? 
Who shall put asunder the best affections of the heart, the 
noblest instincts of our nature ? We love the land of our 
adoption ; so do we that of our birth. Let us ever be true 
to both ; and ever exert ourselves in maintaining the unity 
of our country, the integrity of the republic. 

Accursed, then, be the hand put forth to loosen the gold- 
en cord of union ! Thrice accursed the traitorous lips that 
shall propose its severance ! But no ! the Union can not 
be dissolved.' Its fortunes are too brilliant to be marred ; 
its destinies too powerful to be resisted. And when, a cen- 
tury hence, this city shall have filled Ler golden horns — 
when within her broad-armed port shall be gathered the prod- 
ucts of the industry of freemen, — when galleries of art and 
halls of learning shall have made classic this mart of trade, 
— then may the sons of the Pilgrims, still wandering from 
the bleak hills of the l^orth, stand upon the banks of the 
Great River and exclaim, with mingled pride and wonder, 
Lo ! this is our country. When did the world ever behold 
so great and glorious a republic ? 



Ex. CXXXVIIL— iO'lF ENGLAND'S DEAD. 



Isaac McLellan. 



New England's dead ! New England's dead ! 

On every hill they lie ; 
On every field of strife, made red 

By bloody victory. 



21d PATEIOTIC ELOQUENCE. 

Each valley where the battle poured 

Its red and awful tide, 
Beheld the brave New England sword 

With slaughter deeply dyed. 
Their bones are on the northern hill, 

And on the southern plain ; 
By brook and river, lake and rill, 

And by the roaring main. 

The land is holy where they fought, 

And holy where they fell ; 
For by their blood that land was bought — 

The land they loved so well. 
Then glory to that gallant band. 
The honored saviours of the land. 
Oh, few and weak their numbers were, — 

A handful of brave men ; 
But to their God they gave their prayer, 

And rushed to battle then : 
The God of battles heard their cry, 
And sent to them the victory. 

They left the ploughshare in the mould, 

Their flocks and herds without a fold, 

The sickle in the unshorn grain. 

The corn, half-garnered, on the plain, 

And mustered in their simple dress, 

For wrongs to seek a stern redress ; 

To right those wrongs, come weal, come woe ; 

To perish, or o'ercome their foe. 

And v/here are ye, oh fearless men ? 

And where are ye to-day ? 
I call : — the hills reply again 

That ye have passed away. 
That on old Bunker's lonely height. 

In Trenton and on Monmouth's ground, 
The grass grows green, the harvest bright. 

Above each soldier's mound ! 

The bugle's wild and warlike blast 
Shall muster them no more ; 

An army now might thunder past. 
And they not heed its roar. 



APPEAL TO THE REPUBLIC. 217 

The starry flag 'neath which they fought 

In many a bloody day, 
From their old graves shall rouse them not, 

For they have passed away. 



Ex. GJXTU..— APPEAL TO THE REPUBLIC. 

JOSEPH STORY.* 

W"HE]sr we reflect on what has heen, and is now, is it pos- 
sible not to feel a profound sense of the responsibleness of 
this republic to all future ages ? What vast motives press 
upon us for lofty efforts ! What brilliant prospects invite 
our enthusiasm ! What solemn warnings at once demand 
our vigilance, and moderate our confidence ! 

We stand the latest, and, if we fail, probably the last ex- 
periment of self-government by the people. We have begun 
it under circumstances of the most auspicious nature. We 
are in the vigor of youth. Our growth has never been 
checked by the oppressions of tyranny. Our constitutions 
have never been enfeebled by the vices or luxuries of the 
old world. Such as we are, we have been from the begin- 
ning ; simple, hardy, intelligent, accustomed to self-govern- 
ment and self-respect. 

The Atlantic rolls between us and any formidable foe. 
Within our own territory, stretching through many degrees 
of latitude and longitude, we have the choice of many prod- 
ucts, and many means of independence. The government 
is mild. The press is free. Religion is free. Knowledge 
reaches, or may reach, every home. What fairer prospect of 
success could be presented ? What means more adequate to 
accomplish the sublime end ? What more is necessary than 
for the people to preserve what they themselves have created ? 

Already has the age caught the spirit of our institutions. 
It has already ascended the Andes, and snuffed the breezes 
of both oceans. It has infused itself into the life-blood of 
Europe, and warmed the sunny plains of France, and the 
low lands of Holland. It has touched the philosophy of Ger- 

* Judge of the Supreme Court of the United States ; a distinguished ju- 
rist and writer on jurisprudence. Judge Story was a ixative of Massachusetts. 
10 



218 PATSIOTIC ELOQUENCE. 

many and the North, and, moving onward to the South, has 
opened to Greece the lessons of her better days. 

Can it be that America, under such circumstances, can 
betray herself? that she is to be added to the catalogue of 
republics, the inscription of whose rains is, " They were, but 
they are not ! " Forbid it, my countrymen ; forbid it, 
Heaven ! 

I call upon you, fathers, by the shades of your ancestors, 
by the dear ashes which repose in this precious soil, by all 
you are, and all you hope to be ; resist every project of dis- 
union ; resist every encroachment upon your liberties ; re- 
sist every attempt to fetter your consciences, or smother 
your public schools, or extinguish your system of public in- 
struction. 

I call upon you, mothers, by that which never fails in 
woman — the love of your offspring ; teach them, as they 
climb your knees or lean upon your bosom, the blessing of 
liberty. Swear them at the altar, as Avith their baptismal 
vows, to be true to their country, and never to forget or for- 
sake her. 

I call upon you, young, men, to remember whose sons 
you are — whose inheritance you possess. Life can never 
be too short, which brings nothing but disgrace and op- 
pression. Death can never come too soon, if necessary in 
defence of the liberties of your country. 

I call upon you, old men, for your counsel, your prayers 
and your benedictions. May your gray hairs not go down 
in sorrow to the grave, with the recollection that you have 
lived in vain. May your last sun not sink in the west upon 
a nation of slaves. 

No ! I read in the destiny of my country far better hopes, 
far brighter visions. We who are now assembled here, must 
soon be gathered to the congregation of other days. The 
time for our departure is at hand, to make way for our chil- 
dren upon the theatre of life. May God speed them and 
theirs. May he who at the distance of another century shall 
stand here to celebrate this day, still look round upon. a free, 
happy and virtuous people. May he have reason to exult as 
we do ! May he, with all the enthusiasm of truth as well as 
of poetry, exclaim that here is still his country — 

" Zealous, yet modest ; innocent, though free ; 
Patient of toil ; serene apaidst alarms ; 
Inflexible ia faith ; invincible in. arms," 



THE FOUNDATION OF NATIONAL CHARACTER. 219 



Ex. GTL.— NATIONAL RECOLLECTIONS THE FOUNDATION 
OF NATIONAL CHARACTER. 

EDWARD EVERETT.* 

How is the spirit of a free people to be formed, and ani- 
mated, and cheered, but out of the store-house of its historic 
recollections ? Are we to be eternally ringing the changes 
upon Marathon and Thermopylae ; and going back to read, in 
obscure texts of Greek and Latin, of the exemplars of pa- 
triotic virtue ? I thank God that we can find them nearer 
home, in our own country, on our own soil ; that strains of 
the noblest sentiment that ever swelled in the breast of man 
are breathing to us out of every page of our country's his- 
tory, in the native eloquence of our mother tongue ; that the 
colonial and provincial councils of America exhibit to us 
models of the spirit and character which gave Greece and 
Rome their name and their praise among nations. Here we 
ought to go for our instruction ; the lesson is plain, it is 
clear, it is applicable. "VVTien we go to ancient history, we 
are bewildered with the difference of manners and institu- 
tions. We are willing to pay our tribute of applause to the 
memory of Leonidas, who fell nobly for his country in the 
face of his foe. But when we trace him to his home, we are 
confounded at tlie reflection, that the same Spartan heroism 
to which he sacrificed himself at Thermopylae, would have 
led him to tear his own child, if it happened to be a sickly 
babe, the very object for which all that is kind and good in 
man rises up to plead, from the bosom of its mother, and 
carry it out to be eaten by the wolves of Taygetus. We 
feel a glow of admiration at the heroism displayed at Mara- 
thon, by the ten thousand champions of invaded Greece ; but 
we can not forget that the tenth part of the number were 
slaves, unchained from the work-shops and door-posts of 
their masters, to go out and fight the battles of freedom. I do 
not mean that these examples are to destroy the interest with 

* For many years Mr. Everett was best known among us as the statesman, 
the orator and the man of letters ; but during the latter part of his life he add- 
ed to these titles the far nobler one of a disinterested patriot. He contribu- 
ted nearly one hundred thousand dollars, the proceeds of lectures and other 
literary labors, towards purchasing Washington's estate of Mount Vernon, to- 
gether with the family tomb upon it, as a gift to the nation ; and throughout 
the war of the Rebellion devoted his best energies and efforts to the advance- 
ment of the Union cause. He died in 1864, deeply lamented. 



220 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE. 

which we read the history of ancient times ; they possibly 
increase that interest by the very contrast they exhibit. But 
they do warn us, if we need the warning, to seek our great 
practical lessons of patriotism at home ; out of the exploits 
and sacrifices of which our own country is the theatre ; out 
of the characters of our own fathers. Them we know, the 
high-souled, natural, unaffected citizen heroes. We know 
what happy firesides they left for the cheerless camp. We 
know with what pacific habits they dared the perils of the 
field. There is no mystery, no romance, no madness, under 
the name of chivalry, about them. It is all resolute, manly 
resistance, for conscience and liberty's sake, not merely of an 
overwhelming power, but of all the force of long-rooted 
habits and native love of order and peace. 

Above all, their blood calls to us from the soil which we 
tread ; it beats in our veins ; it cries to us not merely in the 
thrilling words of one of the first victims in this cause : " My 
sous, scorn to be slaves ! " but it cries with a still more mov- 
ing eloquence, " My sons, forget not your fathers ! " 



Ex. QTLI.—THE YOUNG AMERICAN. 

ALEXANDER H. EVERETT.* 

Scion of a mighty stock ! 
Hands of iron — heart of oak — 
Follow with unflinching tread 
Where thy noble fathers led ! 

Graft and subtle treachery. 
Gallant youtli ! are not for thee ; 
Follow then in words and deeds 
Where the God within thee leads. 

Honesty, with steady eye. 
Truth and pure simplicity, 
Love that gently winneth hearts, 
These shall be thy only arts. 

* An elder brother of Edward Everett. He was an accomplished man and 
able writer, and filled many diplomatic situations. 



THE SWOED AND THE STAFF. 221 

Prudent in the council train, 
Dauntless on the battle plain, 
Ready at the country's need 
For her glorious cause to bleed. 

Let thy noble motto be 
God, oue Country, Libeety ! 
Planted on Religion's rock, 
Thou shalt stand in every shock. 

Laugh at danger far or near ! 
Spurn at baseness, spurn at fear ! 
Still, with persevering might, 
Spread the truth and do the right ! 

So shall Peace, a charming guest, 
Dove-like in thy bosom rest ; 
So shall Honor's steady blaze 
Beam upon thy closing days. 

Happy if celestial favor 
Smile upon thy high endeavor ; 
Happy if it be thy call 
In the holy cause to fall. 



Ex. OTLII.—THE SWORD AND THE STAFF. 

Speech, in Congress on the Presentation of these Memorials. 

JOHN QTJINCY ADAMS. 

The Sword of Washington ! The Staff of Franklin ! 
Oh, Sir, what associations are linked in adamant with these 
names ! Washington, whose sword was never drawn but 
in the cause of his country, and never sheathed when wield- 
ed in his country's defence ! Franklin, the philosopher of 
the thunderbolt, the printing-press, and the ploughshare ! 
What names are these in the scanty catalogue of the bene- 
factors of human kind ! Washington and Franklin ! What 
other two men whose lives belong to the eighteenth century 
of Christendom, have left a deeper impression of themselves 
upon the age in which they lived, and upon all after time ? 

Washington, the warrior and the legislator ! In war, 



222 PATEIOTIC ELOQUENCE. 

contending by the wager of battle for the independence of 
his country, and for the freedom of the human race, — ever 
manifesting amid its horrors, by precept and by example, 
his reverence for the laws of peace and for the tenderest 
sympathies of humanity ; — in peace, soothing the ferocious 
spirit of discord among his own countrymen into harmony 
and union, and giving to that very sword, now presented to 
his country, a charm more potent than thUt attributed in 
ancient times to the lyre of Orpheus. 

Franklin ! the mechanic of his OAvn fortune ; teaching in 
early youth, under the shackles of indigence, the way to 
wealth, and in the shade of obscurity, the path to great- 
ness ; in the maturity of manhood, disarming the thunder 
of its terrors, the lightning of its fatal blast, and wresting 
from the tyrant's hand the still more afflictive sceptre of op- 
pression ; v/hile descending into the vale of years, travers- 
ing the Atlantic Ocean, braving in the dead of winter the bat- 
tle and the breeze, bearing in his hand the Charter of Inde- 
pendence, which he had contributed to form, and tendering, 
from the self-created nation to the mightiest monarchs of 
Europe, the olive-branch of peace, the mercurial wand of 
commerce, and the amulet of protection and safety to the 
man of peace, on the pathless ocean, from the inexorable 
cruelty and merciless rapacity of war. 

And, finally, in the last stage of life, with fourscore win- 
ters upon his head, under the torture of an incurable disease,' 
returning to his native land ; closing his days as the chief 
magistrate of his adopted commonwealth, after contributing 
by his counsels, under the Presidency of Washington, and 
recording his name, under the sanction of devout prayer in- 
voked by him to God, to that Constitution under the authori- 
ty of which we are here assembled as the representatives of 
the N'orth American people, to receive, in their name and for 
them, these venerable relics of the wise, the valiant and the 
good founders of our great confederated republic, — these 
sacred symbols of our golden age. May they be deposited 
among the archives of our government ! And may every 
American who shall hereafter behold them, ejaculate a 
mingled offering of praise to that Supreme Ruler of the Uni- 
verse by whose tender mercies our IJnion has been hilherto 
preserved through all the vicissitudes and revolutions of this 
turbulent world ; and of prayer for the continuance of these 
blessings by the dispensations of Providence, to our beloved 
country, from age to age till time shall be no more ! 



CONSEQUENCES OF AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE. 223 



Ex. CrKLlIl.—CONSEQUJE:NCi:S OF AMERICAN INDEPEND- 
ENCE. 

TIRGIL MAXCY. 

In a full persuasion of the excellency of our government, 
let us shun those vices which tend to its subversion, and cul- 
tivate those virtues which will render it permanent, and 
transmit it in fulL vigor to all succeeding ages. Let not the 
haggard forms of intemperance and luxury ever lift up their 
destroying visages in this happy country. Let economy, 
frugality, moderation, and justice at home and abroad, mark 
the conduct of all our citizens. Let it be our constant care 
to diffuse knowledge and goodness through all ranks of so- 
ciety. The people of this country will never be uneasy un- 
der its present form of government, provided they have suf- 
ficient information to judge of its excellence. N'o nation 
under heaven enjoys so much happiness as the Americans. 
Convince them of this, and will they not shudder at the 
thought of subverting their political constitution, of suffer- 
ing it to degenerate into aristocracy or monarchy ? Let a 
sense of our happy situation awaken in us the warmest sen- 
sations of gratitude to the Supreme Being. Let us consider 
Him as the author of all our blessings, acknowledging Him 
as our beneficent parent, protector and friend. The predom- 
inant tendency of His providences towards us as a nation, 
evinces His benevolent designs. Every part of His conduct 
speaks in a language plain and intelligible. Let us open our 
ears, let us attend, let us be wise. 

While we celebrate the anniversary of our independence, 
let us not pass over in silence the defenders of our country. 
Where are those brave Americans whose lives were cloven 
down in the tempest of battle ? Are they not bending from 
their bright abodes ? A voice from the altar cries, " These 
are they who loved their country — these are they who died 
for liberty!" We now reap the fruit of their agony and 
toil. Let their memory be eternally embalmed in our bo- 
soms. Let the infants of all posterity prattle their fame, 
and drop tears of courage for their fate. 

The consequences of American independence will soon 
reach to the extremities of the world. The shining car of 
Freedom will soon roll over the necks of kings, and bear off 
the oppressed to scenes of liberty and peace. The clamors 
of war will cease under the whole heaven. The tree of liber- 



224 PATEIOTIC ELOQUENCE. 

ty will shoot its top up to tlie sun. Its boughs will' hang 
over the ends of the world, and wearied nations will lie down 
and rest under its shade. 

Here in America stands the asylum for the distressed and 
persecuted of all nations. The vast temple of Freedom rises 
majestically fair. Founded on a rock, it will remain un- 
shaken by the force of tyrants, undiminished by the flight 
of time. Long streams of light emanate through its portals, 
and chase the darkness from distant nations. Its turrets will 
swell into the heavens, rising above every tempest; and the 
pillar of divine glory, descending from God, will rest for 
ever on its summit. 



Ex. CXLIV.^DEVOTJOJSr TO COUNTRY. 

ALFRED B. STREET. 

Hail to this planting of Liberty's tree ! 
Hail to the charter declaring us free ! 
Millions of voices are chanting its praises. 

Millions of worshippers bend at its shrine. 
Wherever the sun of America blazes, 

Wherever the stars of our bright banner shine. 

Sing to the heroes who breasted the flood. 

That swelling, rolled o'er them — a deluge of blood. 

Fearless they clung to the ark of the nation, 

And dashed on 'mid lightning, and thunder and blast, 
TiU Peace, like the dove, brought her branch of salvation, 

And Liberty's mount was their refuge at last. 

Bright is the beautiful land of our birth, 
The home of the homeless all over the earth : 
Oh, then, let us ever, with fondest devotion, 

The freedom our fathers bequeathed us, watch o'er, 
Till the Angel shall stand on the earth and the ocean, 

And shout 'mid earth's ruins that Time is no more. 



AMERICAN HISTOEY. 225 



Ex. CTLY.— AMERICAN HISTORY. 

GULIAN C. VERPLANCK. 

The study of the history of most other nations fills the 
mind with sentiments not unlike those which the American 
traveller feels on entering the venerable and lofty cathedral 
of some proud old city of Europe. Its solemn grandeur, its 
vastness, its obscurity, strike awe to his heart. From the 
richly painted windows, filled with sacred emblems and 
strange antique forms, a dim religious light falls around. A 
thousand recollections of romance and poetry and legendary 
story, come thronging in upon him. He is surrounded by 
the tombs of the mighty dead, rich with the labors of ancient 
art, and emblazoned with the pomp of heraldry. 

What names does he read upon them ? Those of princes 
and nobles who are now remembered only for their vices, 
and of sovereigns at w^hose death no tears were shed, and 
whose memories lived not an hour in the affections of their 
people. There, too, he sees other names, long familiar to 
him for their guilty or ambiguous fame. There rest the 
blood-stained warrior of fortune, — the orator who was ever 
the apologist of tyranny, — great scholars, who were the 
pensioned flatterers of power, and j)oets who profaned the 
high gift of genius to pamper the vices of a corrupted court. 

Our own history, on the contrary, like that poetical tem- 
ple of fame reared by the imagination of Chaucer, and decor- 
ated by the taste of Pope, is almost exclusively dedicated to 
the memory of the truly great. Or rather, like the Pantheon 
of Rome, it stands in calm and severe beauty amid the ruins 
of ancient magnificence and "the toys of modern state." 
Within, no idle ornament encumbers its bold simplicity. The 
pure light of heaven enters from above, and sheds an equal 
and serene radiance around. As the eye wanders about its 
extent, it beholds the unadorned monuments of brave and 
good men who have bled or toiled for their country, or it 
rests on votive tablets inscribed with the names of the best 
benefactors of mankind. 

We have been repeatedly told, and sometimes, too, in a 
tone of affected impartiality, that the highest praise which 
can fairly be given to the American mind, is that of possess- 
ing an enlightened selfishness ; that if the philosophy and 
talents of this country, with all their effects, were forever 
swept into oblivion, the loss would be felt only by ourselves ; 
10* 



226 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE. 

and that if to the .accuracy of this general charge, the labors 
of Franklin present an illustrious, it is still but a solitary, 
exception. 

The answer may be given confidently and triumphantly. 
Is it nothing for the universal good of mankind to have car- 
ried into successful operation a system of self-government 
uniting personal liberty, freedom of opinion and equality of 
rights, with national power and dignity such as had before 
existed only in the Utopian dreams of philosophers ? Is it 
nothing in moral science to have anticipated, in sober reali- 
ty, numerous j)lans of reform in civil and criminal jurispru- 
dence, which are but now received as plausible theories by 
the politicians and economists of Europe ? Is it nothing to 
have been able to call forth on every emergency, either in 
war or peace, a body of talents always equal to the difficul- 
ty ? Is it nothing to have given the Avorld examples of dis- 
interested patriotism, of political wisdom, of public virtue ; 
of learning, eloquence and valor, never exerted, save for some 
praiseworthy end ? It is sufficient to have briefly suggest- 
ed these considerations ; every mind would anticipate me in 
filling up the details. 

1^0 — land of Liberty ! thy children have no cause to 
blush for thee. What though the arts have reared few monu- 
ments among us, and scarce a trace of the Muse's footstep 
is found in the paths of our forests, or along the banks of 
our rivers — yet our soil has been consecrated by the blood 
of heroes, and by great and holy deeds of peace. Its wide 
extent has become one vast temple and hallowed asylum, 
sanctified by the prayers and blessings of the persecuted of 
every sect, and the wretched of all nations. 

Land of Refuge ! Land of Benedictions ! Those pray- 
ers still arise and they still are heard: "May peace be 
within thy walls, and plenteousness within thy palaces ! " 
" May there be no decay, no leading into captivity, and no 
complaining in thy streets ! " " May truth flourish out of 
the earth, and righteousness look down from Heaven ! " 



RECOLLECTIONS OF THE EE VOLUTION. 227 



Ex. CXLVl.--BNJSrOBLI]VG RECOLLECTIONS OF THE REV- 
OLUTION. 

ROBERT Y. HAYNE.* 

It has been usual, on occasions like the present, to give a 
history of the wrongs endured by our fathers. But we have 
prouder and more ennobling recollections connected with 
our revolution. They are to be found in the spirit displayed 
by our fathers when all their petitions had been slighted, 
their remonstrances despised, and their appeals to the gener- 
ous sympathies of their brethren utterly disregarded. Yes, 
my friends, theirs was that pure and lofty spirit of devoted 
patriotism which never quailed beneath oppression, ivhich 
braved all dangers, trampled upon difficulties, and in " the 
times which tried men's souls" taught them to be faithful to 
their principles, and to their country true ; and which in- 
duced them in the very spirit of that Brutus whose mantle 
has fallen, in our own day, upon the shoulders of one so well 
able to wear it, to swear on the altar of liberty to give 
themselves up wholly to their country. There is one char- 
acteristic, however, of the American revolution, which con- 
stituting as it does its living principle, its proud distinction, 
and its crowning glory, can not be passed over in silence. 
It is this — that our revolution had its origin, not so much in 
the weight of actual oppression, as in the great principle, 
the sacred duty, of resistance to the exercise of unauthor- 
ized power. Other nations have been driven to rebellion by 
the iron hand of despotism, the insupportable weight of op- 
pression, which leaving men nothing worth living for, has 
taken away the fear of death itself, and caused them to rush 
upon the spears of their enemies, or to break their chains upon 
the heads of their oppressors. But it was a tax of three pence 
a pound upon tea, imposed without right, which was consid- 
ered by our ancestors as a burden too grievous to be borne. 
And why ? Because they were men " who felt oppression's 
lightest finger as a mountain weight," and, in the fine lan- 
guage of that just and beautiful tribute paid to their charac- 
ter by one " whose praises will wear well" — they "judged 
of the grievance by the badness of the principle, they au- 
gured misgovernment at a distance, and snufied the approach 
of tyranny in every tainted breeze — because they were men 

* U. S. Senator from South Carolina. 



228 PATEIOTIC ELOQUENCE. 

who in the darkest hour could say to their oppressors, * We 
have counted the cost, and find nothing so deplorable as 
voluntary slavery ; ' and who were ready to exclaim with 
the orator of Virginia, ' give me liberty or give me death ! ' " 
Theirs was the same spirit which inspired the immortal 
Hampden to resist, at the peril of his life, the imposition of 
ship-money ; not because, as remarked by Burke, " the pay- 
ment of twenty shillings would have ruined his fortune, but 
because the payment of half twenty shillings or the princi- 
ple on which it was demanded, would have made him a 
slave." It was the spirit of liberty which still abides on the 
earth, and whose home is in the bosoms of the brave ; which 
but yesterday, in " beautiful France," restored their violated 
charter ; which even now burns brightly on the towers of 
Belgium, and has rescued Poland from the tyrant's grasp ; 
making their sons — aye, and their daughters too — the wonder 
and the admiration of the world, — the pride and glory of 
the human race ! 



Ex. CTLYIL—ODE. 

ANNE C. LYNCH. 

Our patriot sires are gone ; 

The conqueror Death lays low 
Those veterans one by one 

Who braved each other foe ; 
Though on them rests Death's sable pall, 
Yet o'er their deeds no shade shall fall. 

No ; ye of deathless fame ! 

Ye shall not sleep unsung 
While freedom hath a name, 

Or gratitude a tongue ; 
Yet shall your names and deeds sublime 
Shine brighter through the mists of Time. 

Oh, keep your armor bright, 

Sons of those mighty dead, 
And guard ye well the right 

For which such blood was shed ! 
Your starry flag should only wave , 
O'er Freedom's home, or o'er your grave. 



BOND OF UNIOJ^^ BETWEEN NORTH AND SOUTH. 229 



Ex. OXLVIIL— ^OiVi) OF UNION BETWEEN NORTH AND 
SOUTIL"^ 

Speecli in Congress, Jan. 26, 1830. 

DANIEL WEBSTER. 

Me. Peesident : The eulogium pronounced by the hon- 
orable gentleman on the character of the State of South 
Carolina, for her Revolutionary and other merits, meets my 
hearty concurrence. I shall not acknowledge that the hon- 
orable member goes before me in regard for whatever of dis- 
tinguished talent, or distinguished character, South Carolina 
has produced. I claim part of the honor ; I partake in the 
pride of her great names. I claim them for countrymen, 
one and all ; the Laurenses, the Rutledges, the Pinckneys, 
the Sumters, the Marions, — Americans all, whose fame is no 
more to be hemmed in by State lines than their talents and 
patriotism were capable of being circumscribed within the 
same narrow limits. 

In their day and generation they served and honored the 
country, and the whole country ; and their renown is of the 
treasures of the whole country. Him whose honored name 
the gentleman himself bears, — does he esteem me less capa- 
ble of gratitude for his patriotism, or sympathy for his suf- 
ferings, than if his eyes had first opened upon the light of 
Massachusetts instead of South Carolina ? Sir, does he sup- 
pose it in his power to exhibit a South Carolina name so 
bright as to produce envy in my bosom ? No, Sir ; increased 
gratification and delight rather. I thank God that, if I am 
gifted with little of the spirit which is able to raise mortals 
to the skies, I have yet none, as I trust, of that other spirit 
which would drag angels down. 

When I shall be found, Sir, in my place here in the 

* This and the following extract are taken from Webster's " Reply to Hayne," 
which has been pronounced the most celebrated parliamentary speech ever 
delivered. Robert Y. Hayne, Senator from South Carolina, took occasion while 
speaking ostensibly on a bill relating to the public lands, to use contemptu- 
ous language towards Massachusetts and the New England Stotes in general, 
and to advance the doctrine of " nullification," or the right of a State to resist 
the operation of any law which she considered unconstitutional or opposed to 
her interests, and declare it null and void. Mr. Webster's reply was a com- 
plete refutation of every point in his opponent's argument, and justly ranks 
as a masterpiece of parliamentary eloquence. From this splendid speech we 
can give only short extracts ; but every American student who has access to 
Webster's writings should study it thoroughly as a whole. It is called in the 
collection of his published works, "Second Speech on Foot's Resc^utions." 



230 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE. 

Senate or elsewhere, to sneer at public merit because it hap* 
pens to spring up beyond the little limits of my own State 
or neighborhood ; when I refuse, for such cause, or for any 
cause, the homage due to American talent, to elevated patriot- 
ism, to sincere devotion to liberty and the country ; or if I 
see an uncommon endowment of Heaven, if I see extraordina- 
ry capacity and virtue in any son of the South, and if, moved 
by local prejudice or gangrened by State jealousy I get up 
here to abate the tithe of a hair from his just character and 
just fame, may my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth ! 

Sir, let me refer to pleasing recollections, let me indulge 
in refreshing remembrance of the past ; let me remind you 
that, in early times, no States cherished greater harmony, 
both of principle and feeling, than Massachusetts and South 
Carolina. Would to God that harmony might again return ! 
Shoulder to shoulder they went through the Revolution, 
hand in hand they stood round the administration of Wash- 
ington, and felt his great arm lean on them for support. 
Unkind feeling, if it exist, alienation and distrust are the 
growth, unnatural to si^ch soils, of false principles since 
sown. They are weeds, the seeds of which that same great 
arm never scattered. 

Mr. President, I shall enter on no encomium on Massa- 
chusetts. She needs none. There she is ; behold her, and 
judge for yourselves. There is her history ; the world 
knows it by heart. The past, at least, is secure. There is 
Boston, and Concord, and Lexington, and Bunker Hill ; and 
there they will remain forever. TJie bones of her sons, fall- 
ing in the great struggle for Independence, now lie mingled 
with the soil of every State from New England to Georgia ; 
and there they will lie forever. And, Sir, where America 
raised its first voice, and where its youth Avas nurtured and 
sustained, there it still lives, in the strength of its manhood 
and full of its original spirit. If discord and disunion shall 
wound it, if party strife and blind ambition shall hawk at 
and tear it, if folly and madness, if uneasiness under salu- 
tary and necessary restraint, shall succeed in separating it 
from that Union by which alone its existence is made sure, 
it will stand, in the end, by the side of that cradle in which 
its infancy was rocked ; it will stretch forth its arm with 
whatever of vigor it may still retain over the friends who 
gather round it ; and it will fall at last, if fall it must, 
amidst the proudest monuments of its own glory, and on the 
very spot of its origin. 



THE UNION MFST BE PRESEEVED. 231 

Ex. CXLIX.—TEJS UNION MUST BE PRESERVED. 

Speech in Congress, January 26, 1880. 

DANIEL WEBSTER. 

Me. Peesident : I have thus stated the reasons of my 
dissent to the doctrines which have been advanced and main- 
tained. I am conscious of having detained you and the 
Senate much too long. I was drawn into the debate with 
no previous deliberation, such as is suited to the discussion 
of so grave and important a subject. But it is a subject of 
which my heart is full, and I have not been willing to sup- 
press the utterance of its spontaneous sentiments. I can not, 
even now, persuade myself to relinquish it without express- 
ing once more my deep conviction that, since it respects 
nothing less than the union of the States, it is of most vital 
and essential importance to the public happiness. 

I profess, sir, in my career hitherto, to have kept steadily 
in view the prosperity and the honor of the whole country, 
and the preservation of the Federal Union. I have not al- 
lowed myself to look beyond the union, to see what might 
be hidden in the dark recess behind. I have not coolly 
Aveighed the chances of preserving liberty, when the bonds 
that unite us together shall be broken asimder. I have not 
accustomed myself to hang over the precipice of disunion, 
to see whether, with my short sight, I can fathom the depths 
of the abyss below ; nor could I regard him as a safe coun- 
sellor in the aflairs of this government, T>^hose thoughts should 
be mainly bent on considering, not how the Union should be 
preserved, but how tolerable might be the condition of the 
people when it shall be broken up and destroyed. 

While the union lasts, we have high, exciting, gratifying 
prospects spread out before us, for us and our children. Be- 
yond that, I seek not to penetrate the veil. God grant, that 
in my day at least, the curtain may not rise ! God grant that 
on my vision never may be opened what lies behind ! When 
my eyes shall be turned to behold, for the last time, the sun 
in heaven, may I not see him shining on the broken and dis- 
honored fragments of a once glorious union ; on States dis- 
severed, discordant, belligerent ; on a land rent ^4th civil 
feuds, or drenched, it may be, in fraternal blood ! Let their 
last feeble and lingering glance rather behold the gorgeous 
ensign of the republic, now known and honored throughout 



232 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE. 

the earth, still full high advanced, its arms and trophies 
streaming in their original lustre, not a star obscured, not a 
stripe erased or polluted, hearing for its motto no such miser- 
able interrogatory as What is all this worth f or those other 
words of delusion and folly. Liberty first^ and union after w ar d ; 
but everywhere spread all over in characters of living light, 
blazing on all its ample folds as they float over the sea, and 
over the land, and in every wind under the whole heavens, 
that other sentiment, dear to every true American heart : Lib- 

EBTY AND UnION, NOW AND EOEEVEE, ONE AND INSEPAKABLE. 



Ex. CJ..— UNIO]^ AND LIBERTY. 

THOMAS S. GRIMKB.* 

Hail, our country's natal morn ! 
Hail, our spreading kindred born ! 
Hail, thou banner, not yet torn, 

"Waving o'er the free ! 
While this day in festal throng 
Millions swell the patriot song, 
Shall not we thy notes prolong, 

Hallowed jubilee ? 

Who would sever Freedom's shrine ? 
Who would draw th' invidious line ? 
Though, by birth, one spot be mine, 

Dear is all the rest ! 
Dear to me the South's fair land, 
Dear the central mountain band, 
Dear New England's rocky strand, 

Dear the prairied West ! 

By our altars pure and free, 
By our law's deep-rooted tree, 
By the Past's dread memory. 
By our Washington ! — 

* A patriotic son of Soutli Carolina. This poem was written July 4th, 
1832, in the midst of the excitement attending the discussion of "nuUifica- 
tion." Mr. Grimke, with many others of his fellow-citizeus, strongly opposed 
this doctrine, and used all the eloquence of his tongue and pen in favor of 
maintaining the authority of the general government in contradistinction to 
what were called '■'■ State Eights." 



APPEAL TO THE PEOPLE OF SOUTH CAROLINA. 233 

By our common kindred tongue, 
By our hopes, bright, buoyant, young, 
By the ties of country strong — 
We will still be one ! 

Fathers, have ye bled in vain ? 
Ages, must ye droop again ? 
Maker ! shall we rashly stain 

Blessings sent by Thee ? 
No ! Receive our solemn vow. 
While before Thy throne we bow, 
Ever to maintain, as now. 

Union and Liberty I 

» 

Ex. CLL-^APFJEJAL TO THE PEOPLE OF SOUTH CAROLINA* 

December 11th, 1832. 

ANDREW JACKSON. 

Fellow-citizens of my native state : Contemplate the 
condition of that country of which you form an important 
part. Consider its government, uniting in one bond of com- 
mon interest and general protection so many different States, 
giving to all their inhabitants the proud title of American 
citizens, protecting their commerce, securing their literature 
and their arts, facilitating their intercommunication, defend- 
ing their frontiers, and making their name respected in the 
remotest parts of the earth. Consider the extent of its ter- 
ritory, its increasing and happy population, its advance in 
arts which render life agreeable, and the sciences which ele- 
vate the mind. 

See education spreading the light of religion, humanity, 
and general information into every cottage in this wide ex- 
tent of our Territories and States. Behold it as the asylum 

* This earnest appeal is the conclusion of a proclamation to the people of 
South Carolina, in which President Jackson stated his determination to en- 
force the U. S. Revenue Laws, notwithstanding the action of the S. C. Con- 
vention, which had just declared them nuU and void in that State. He agreed 
with the Convention in thinkmg that the Tariff BiU, which was the point in 
dispute, ought to be modified, but insisted that while the laws stood they 
should be obeyed. The matter was finally settled by a compromise, but not 
until after the passage of a bill by Congress enabling the President to main- 
tain the supremacy of the law by force, if necessary. 



234 PATSIOTIC ELOQUENCE. 

where the wretched and the oppressed find a refuge and sup- 
port. Look on this picture of happiness and honor, and say, 
" We, too, are citizens of America ! " Carolina is one of 
these proud States. Her arms have defended, her best blood 
has cemented, this happy union ! And then add, if you can 
without horror and remorse, " This happy union we will dis- 
solve, — this picture of peace and prosperity we will deface, 
■ — this free intercourse we will interrupt, — these fertile fields 
we will deluge with blood, — the protection of that glorious 
flag we renounce, — the very name of Americans v/e dis- 
card ! " And for what, mistaken men, for what do you 
throw away these inestimable blessings — for what would 
you exchange your share in the advantages and honor of the 
Union? For the dream of a separate independence — a 
dream interrupted by bloody conflicts with your neighbors, 
and a vile dependence on a foreign power. If your leaders 
could succeed in establishing a separation, what would be 
your situation ? Do our neighboring republics, every day 
sufiering some new revolution, or contending with a new in- 
surrection, — do they excite your envy ? But the dictates of 
a high duty oblige me solemnly to announce that you can 
not succeed. 

The laws of the United States must be executed. I have 
no discretionary power on the subject ; my duty is emphati- 
cally pronounced in the Constitution. Those who told you 
that they might peaceably prevent their execution, deceived 
you ; they could not have been deceived themselves. They 
knew that a forcible opposition could alone prevent the exe- 
cution of the laws, and they knev/ that such opposition must 
be repelled. Their object is disunion, but be not deceived 
by names; disunion by armed. force is treason. Are you 
really ready to incur its guilt ? If you are, on the heads of 
the instigators of the act be the dreadful consequences ; on 
their heads be the dishonor, but on yours may fall the punish- 
ment ; on your unhappy State will inevitably fall all the evils 
of the conflict you force upon the government of your country. 
Its enemies have beheld our prosperity with a vexation they 
could not conceal ; it was a standing refutation of their 
slavish doctrines, and they will point to om- discord with 
the triumph of malignant joy. 

But it is yet in your power to disappoint them. There 
is yet time to show that the descendants of the Pinckneys, 
the Sumters, the Rutledges, and of the thousand other 
names which adorn the pages of your Revolutionary history, 



APPEAL TO THE PEOPLE OF SOUTH CAEOLLN-A. 235 

will not abandon that Union to support wliicli so many 
of them fought, and bled, and died. I adjure you, as you 
honor their memory, — as you love the cause of freedom to 
which they dedicated their lives, — as you prize the peace of 
your country, the lives of its best citizens, and your own 
fair fame,— to retrace your steps. Snatch from the archives 
of your State the disorganizing edict of its convention ; bid 
its members to reassemble and promulgate the decided ex- 
pressions of your will to remain in the path which alone can 
conduct you to safety, prosperity and honor ; tell them that 
compared to disunion all evils are light, because that brings 
with it an accumulation of all ; declare that you will never 
take the field, unless the star-spangled banner -of your coun- 
try shall float over you, — that you will not be stigmatized 
when dead, and dishonored and scorned while you live, as 
the authors of the first attack on the constitution of your 
country ; its destroyers you cannot be. 

Fellow citizens, the momentous case is before you. On 
your individual support of the government depends the de- 
cision of the great question it involves, v/hether our sacred 
Union will be preserved, and the blessing it secures to us as 
one people shall be perpetuated. 'No one can doubt that the 
unanimity with which that decision will be expressed will 
be such as to inspire new confidence in Republican institu- 
tions, and that the prudence, the wisdom and the courage 
which it will bring to their defence, will transmit them unim- 
paired and invigorated to our children. 

May the Great Ruler of nations grant that, the signal 
blessings with which he has favored ours may not, by the 
madness of party or personal ambition, be disregarded and 
lost, and may His wise Providence bring those who have 
produced this crisis to see their folly before they feel the 
misery of civil strife ; and inspire a returning veneration for 
that Union which, if we may dare to penetrate. His designs, 
He has chosen as the only means of attaining the high des- 
tinies to which we may reasonably aspire. 



236 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE. 



Ex. CLIL— INDIAN'S FAREWELL SPEECH. 

BLACK HAWK.* 

You have taken me prisoner, with all my warriors. I 
am much grieved ; for I expected, if I did not defeat you, to 
hold out much longer and give you more trouble before I 
surrendered. I tried hard to bring you into ambush, but 
your last general understood Indian fighting. I determined 
to rush on you, and fight you face to face. I fought hard. 
But your guns were well aimed. The bullets flew like birds 
in the air, and whizzed by our ears like the wind through 
the trees in winter. 

My warriors fell around me ; it began to look dismal. I 
saw my evil day at hand. The sun rose dim on us in the 
morning, and at night it sank in a dark cloud, and looked 
like a ball of fire. That was the last sun that shone on 
Black Hawk. His heart is dead, and no longer beats quick 
in his bosom. He is now a prisoner to the white men ; they 
will do with him as they wish. But he can stand torture, 
and is not afraid of death. He is no coward. Black Hawk 
is an Indian. 

He has done nothing of which an Indian ought to be 
ashamed. He has fought for his countrymen, against white 
men who came year after year to cheat them and take away 
their lands. You know the cause of our making war. It 
is known to all white men. They ought to be ashamed of 
it. The white men despise the Indians, and drive them from 
their homes. They smile in the face of the poor Indian to 
cheat him ; they shake him by the hand to gain his confi- 
dence, to make him drunk, and to deceive him. We told 
them to let us alone, and keep away from us ; but they fol- 
lowed on, and beset our paths, and coiled themselves among 
us like the snake. They poisoned us by their touch. 

We called a great council, and built a large fire. The 
spirit of our fathers arose and spoke to us to avenge our 
wrongs or die. We set up the war-whoop, and dug up the 
tomahawk ; our knives were ready, and the heart of Black 
Hawk swelled high in his bosom when he led his warriors to 

* Black Hawk was an Indian Chief, commanding several tribes on the 
upper Mississippi, who in 1832 ravaged large portions of the western countiy, 
breaking up settlements and kilHng whole families. Generals Scott and At- 
kinson were sent to defend the frontier, and succeeded in scattering the hos- 
tile tribes and taking many prisoners, among whom was the dreaded chief. 



FAREWELL ADDRESS. 237 

battle. He is satisfied. He will go to the world of spirits con- 
tented. He has done his duty. His father will meet him there 
and commend him. 

Black Hawk is a true Indian, and disdains to cry like a 
woman. He feels for his wife, his children and his friends. 
But he does not care for himself. He cares for the nation 
and the Indians. They will suffer. He laments their fate. 

Farewell my nation ! Black Hawk tried to save you 
and avenge your wrongs. He drank the blood of some of 
the whites. He has been taken prisoner, and his plans are 
stopped. He can do no more. He is near his end. His sun 
is setting, and he will rise no more. Farewell to Black 
Hawk! 



Ex. cuu.—farwi:lz address to the people of the 

UNITED STATES, 1837: 

ANDREW JACKSON. 

Fellow-Citizens : We have now lived almost fifty years 
under the Constitution framed by the patriots and sages of 
the Revolution. We have had our seasons of peace and of 
war, with all the evils which precede or follow a state of 
hostility with powerful nations. We encountered these trials 
with our Constitution yet in its infancy, and under the dis- 
advantages which a new and untried government must 
always feel when it is called upon to put forth its whole 
strength, without the lights of experience to guide it, or the 
weight of precedents to justify its measures. But we have 
passed triumphantly through all these difficulties. Our Con- 
stitution is no longer a doubtful experiment, and at the end 
of nearly half a century, we find that it has preserved unim- 
paired the liberties of the people, secured the rights of prop- 
erty, and that our country has improved and is flourishing 
beyond any former example in the history of nations. 

The progress of the United States, under our free and 
happy institutions, has surpassed the most sanguine hopes of 
the founders of the Republic. Our growth has been rapid 
beyond all former example, in numbers, in wealth, in knowl- 
edge, and in all the useful arts which contribute to the com- 
fort and convenience of man ; and from the earliest ages of 
history to the present day, there never have been thirteen 



238 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE. 

millions of people associated together in one political body 
who enioyed so much freedom and happmess as the people 
of these United States. You have no longer any cause to 
fear danger from abroad ; your strength and power are well 
known throughout the civilized world, as well as^ the high 
and gallant bearing of your sons. It is from withm, among 
Yourlelves ; from cupidity, from corruption, from disappomted 
ambition and inordinate thirst for power, that factions will 
be formed and liberty endangered. It is against such designs, 
whatever disguise the actors may assume, that you have 
especially to guard yourselves. You have the highest ot 
human trusts committed to your care. Providence has 
showered on this favored land blessings without number, and 
has chosen you as the guardians of freedom to preserve it 
for the benefit of the human race. May He who holds m his 
hands the destinies of nations make you worthy of the favors 
He has bestowed, and enable you, with pure hearts and pure 
hands, and sleepless vigilance, to guard and defend, to the 
end of time, the great charge He has committed to your 

My own race is nearly run ; advanced age and failing 
health warn me that before long I must pass beyond the 
reach of human events, and cease to feel the vicissitudes^ ol 
human affairs. I thank God that my life has been spent m a 
land of liberty, and that He has given me a heart to love 
my country with the affection of a son. And, filled with 
gratitude for your constant and unwavering kmdness, i bid 
. you a last and affectionate farewell. 



Ex. cliv.—thje: united states flag. 

WILLIAM ROSS WALLACE. 

Flag of the valiant and the tried. 
Where Marion fought and Warren died ! 
Flag of the mountain and the lake, 

df rivers rolling to the sea. 
In that broad grandeur fit to make 

The symbols of eternity ! 
Oh, fairest flag ! oh, dearest land ! 

Who shall your banded children sever ? 
God of our fathers ! here we stand, 
A true, a free, a fearless band. 



THE UNITED STATES FLAG. 239 

Heart pressed to heart, hand linked to hand, 
And swear that flag shall float forever ! 

Still glorious banner of the free. 
The nations turn with hope to thee ! 
And when thy mighty shadow falls 
Along the armory's trophied walls, 

The ancient trumpets long for breath ; 
The dinted sabres fiercely start 

To vengeance from each clanging sheath, 
As if they sought some traitor's heart ! 

Oh, sacred banner of the brave ! 

Oh, standard of ten thousand ships ! 
Oh, guardian of Mount Vernon's grave, 

Come ! let us press thee to our lips ! 
There is a heaving of the rocks, — 
l!^ew England feels the patriot shocks ; 
There is a heaving of the lakes, — 
New York, with all the West, awakes; 
And lo ! on high, the glorious shade 

Of Washington lights all the gloom, 
And points unto these words, arrayed 

In fire around his tomb : 

" Americans ! your fathers shed 

Their blood to rear the Union's fane ; 
For this that peerless banner spread 

On many a gory plain ! 
Americans ! let no one dare, 

On mountain, valley, prairie, flood. 
By hurling down that temple there, 

To desecrate that blood ! 
The Right shall live, while faction dies ; 

All traitors draw a fleeting breath ! 
But patriots drink, from God's own eyes, 

Truth's light that conquers Death ! " 

Then, dearest flag and dearest land. 

Who shall your banded children sever ? 

God of our fathers ! here we stand, 

A true, a free, a fearless band. 

Heart pressed to heart, hand linked in hand, 
And swear that flaoj shall float forever I 



240 PATEIOTIC ELOQUENCE. 

Ex. €hY.—SUC:E!SSIOjSr DOCTRINES COMBATED, 
Speech in Congress, March 12, 1838. 

DANIEL WEBSTER. 

Me. President : The honorable member from Carolina * 
habitually indulges in charges of usurpation and oppression 
against the government of his country. He daily denounces 
its important measures in the language in which our Revo- 
lutionary fathers spoke of the oppressions of the mother 
country. Not merely against executive usurpation, either 
real or supposed, does he utter these sentiments, but against 
laws of Congress passed by large majorities ; laws sanctioned 
for a course of years by the people. These laws he pro- 
claims every hour to be but a series of acts of oppression. 
He speaks of them as if it were an admitted fact that such 
is their true character. This is the language he uses, these 
are the sentiments he expresses, to the rising generation 
around him. Are they sentiments and language which are 
likely to impress our children with the love of union, to 
enlarge their patriotism, or to teach them and to make them 
feel that their destiny has made them common citizens of one 
great Republic ! 

A principal object in his late political movements, the 
gentleman tells us, was to unite the entire South ; and against 
whom, or against what, does he wish to unite the entire 
South? Is not this the very essence of local feeling and 
local regard ? Is it not the acknowledgment of a wish and 
object to create political strength, by uniting political opin- 
ions geographically ? While the gentleman wishes to unite 
the entire South, I pray to know. Sir, if he expects me to 
turn towards the polar star, and, acting on the same prin- 
ciple, to utter a cry of Rally ! to the whole North ? Heaven 
forbid ! To the day of my death neither he nor others shall 
hear such a cry from me. 

Finally, the honorable member declares that he shall now 
march off, under the banner of State rights ! March off from 
whom ? March off from what ? We have been contending 
for great principles. We have been struggling to maintain 
the liberty and to restore the prosperity of the country ; we 
have made these struggles here, in the national councils, with 
the old flag — the true American flag, the eagle and the stars 

* John C. Calhoun. 



SECESSION DOCTKINES COMBATED. 241 

and stripes — waving over the cliamber in which we sit. He 
now tells us, however, that he marches off under the State- 
rights banner ! 

Let him go. I remain. I am where I have ever been, and 
ever mean to be. Here, standing on the platform of the 
general Constitution, — a platform broad enough, and firm 
enough, to uphold every interest of the whole country, — ^I 
shall still be found. Intrusted with some part in the ad- 
ministration of th^t Constitution, I intend to act in its spirit, 
and in the spirit of those who framed it. Yes, Sir. I would 
act as if our fathers, who formed it for us, and who be- 
queathed it to us, were looking on me, — as if I could see 
their venerable forms bending down to behold us from the 
abodes above ! I would act, too, as if the eye of posterity 
was gazing on me. 

Standing thus, as if in the full gaze of our ancestors and 
our posterity, having received this inheritance from the 
former to be transmitted to the latter, and feelino* that, if I 
am born for any good in my day and generation, it is for the 
good of the whole country, — no local policy, no local feeling, 
no temporary impulse, shall induce me to yield my foothold 
on the constitution and the Union. I move off under no 
banner not known to the whole American people, and to 
their Constitution and laws. IS^o, Sir ! These walls, these 
columns^ 

"Fly 
From their firm base as soon as I." 

I came into public life. Sir, in the service of the United 
States. On that broad altar my earliest and all my public 
vows have been made. I propose to serve no other master. 
So far as dej^ends on any agency of mine, they shall continue 
united States ; united in interes-t and in affection ; united in 
everything in regard to which the Constitution has decreed 
their union ; united in war, for the common defence, the 
common renown, and the common glory ; and united, com- 
pacted, knit firmly together, in peace, for the common 
prosperity and happiness of ourselves and our children ! 
11 ' 



242 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE. 



Ex. ClNl.— THE BIRTH-BAY OF WASHINGTON. 

RUFUS CHOATE. 

The birth-day of the " Father of his Country ! " May 
it ever be freshly remembered by Amencan hearts ! May it 
ever reawaken in them a filial veneration for his memory ; 
ever rekindle the fires of patriotic regard to the country 
which he loved so well ; to which he gave his youthful vigor 
and his youthful energy during the perilous period of the 
early Indian warfare ; to which he devoted his life, in the 
maturity of his powers, in the field ; to which again he 
offered the counsels of his wisdom and his experience, as 
President of the Convention that framed our Constitution ; 
which he guided and directed while in the chair of state, and 
for which the last prayer of his earthly supplication was 
offered up when the moment came for him so well, so grand- 
ly and so calmly, to die. 

He was the first man of the time in which he grew. His 
memory is first and most sacred in our love ; and ever here- 
after, till the last drop of blood shall freeze in the last 
American heart, his name shall be a spell of power and might. 
" First in the hearts of his countrymen ! " Tes, first ! He 
has our first and most fervent love. Undoubtedly there were 
brave and wise and good men before his day, in every colony. 
But the American S"ation, as a nation, I do not reckon to 
have begun before 1774. And the first love of that young 
America was Washington. The first w^ord she lisped was his 
name. Her earliest breath spoke it. It is still her proud ejac- 
ulation ; and it will be the last gasp of her expiring life ! 

Yes ! others of our great men have been appreciated— 
many admired by all. But him we love. About and around 
him we call up no discordant and dissatisfied elements, — no 
sectional prejudice nor bias, — no party, no creed, no dogma 
of politics. None of these shall assail him. ^When the 
storm of battle blows darkest and rages highest, the memory 
of Washington shall nerve every American arm, and cheer 
every American heart. It shall re-illumine that Promethean 
fire, that sublime flame of patriotism, that devoted love of 
country, which his words have commended, which his ex- 
ample has consecrated. ,' 

Where may the wearied eye repose, 

When gazing on the great, 
Where neither guilty glory glows, 
Nor despicable state ? 



E PLUEIBT7S UNT7M. 243 

Yes, one — ^the first, the last, the best, 
The Cmcinnatus of the "West, 

Whom Envy dared not hate, 
Bequeathed the name of Washington, 
To make man blush there was but one." 



Ex. QlSVll.^'' E PLURIBU8 UNUM:' 

JOHN PIERPONT. 

The harp of the minstfrel with melody rings, 

When the muses have taught him to touch and to tune it ; 
But though it may have a full octave of strings, 
To both maker and minstrel, the harp is a unit. 
So the power that creates 
Our Republic of States, 
Into harmony brings them at different dates ; 
And the thii-teen or thirty, the Union once done, 
Are " E Pluribus Unum " — of many made one. 

The science that weighs in her balance the spheres. 

And has watched them since first the Chaldean began it, 
Now and then, as she counts them and measures their years, 
Brings into our system, and names, a new planet. 
Yet the^old and new stars, 
Venus, Neptune and Mars, 
As they drive round the sun their invisible cars, 
Whether faster or slower their races they run. 
Are '^E Pluribus TJnum " — of many made one. 

Of that system of spheres, should but one fly the track, 

Or with others conspu-e for a general dispersion, 
By the great central orb they would all be brought back, 
And each held in her place by a wholesome coercion. 
Should one daughter of light 
Be indulged in her flight. 
They would all be engulfed by old Chaos and Night. 
So must none of our sisters be suffered to run ; 
For, " E Pluribus Unum " — we all go, if one. 

Let the demon of discord our melody mar, 

Or Treason's red hand rend our Union asunder ; 



244 PATEIOTIC ELOQUENCE. 

Break one string from our harp, or extinguisli one star, 
The whole system's ablaze with its lightnmg and thunder. 
Let the discord be hushed ! 
Let the traitors be crushed, 
Though Legion their name, all with victory flushed ! 
For aye must our motto stand, fronting the sun : - 
" E Pluribus Unum,"— though many, we're one ! 



Ex. 01NIII.-REM0NSTRANCE AGAINST THE WAR WITH 
MEXICO.— \%^1. 

THOMAS CORWIN.* 

Sie: while the American president can command the army, 
thank God I can command the purse. He shall have no 
funds from me in the prosecution of such a war. That I con- 
ceive to be the duty of a senator. If it is my duty to grant 
whatever the president demands, for what am I here ? Have 
an American Senate and House of Representatives nothmg 
to do but to obey the bidding of the President, as the army 
he commands is compelled to obey under penalty of death? 
No your Senate and House of Representatives were never 
elected for such purpose as that. They have been modelled 
on the good old plan of English liberty, and are intended to 
represent the English House of Commons, who curbed the 
proud power of the king in olden time, by witholdmg sup- 
plies if they did not approve the war. * It was on this very 
proposition of controlling the executive power of England 
by witholding the money supplies, that the House of Orange 
came in ; and by their accession to the throne commenced a 
new epoch in the history of England, distinguishing it from 
the old reign of the Tudors and Plantagenets and those who 
preceded it. Then it was that ParUament specified the 
purpose of appropriation, and since 1688 it has been im- 
possible for a king of England to involve the people of 
England in a war, which your president, under ;^our repub- 
lican institutions, and with your republican constitution, has 
yet managed to do. He commands this army, and you must 
not withhold their supplies. He involves your country in 
wasteful and exterminating war against a nation with whom 
we have no cause of complaint, but Congress may say 
nothing \ 

* U. S. Senator from Ohio. 



REMONSTRANCE AGAINST THE WAR WITH MEXICO, 245 

Sii', I scarcely understand the meaning of all this myself. 
If we are to vindicate our rights by battles, in bloody lields 
of war, let us do it. If that is not the plan, then let us call 
back our armies into our own territory, and propose a treaty 
with Mexico, based upon the proposition that money is 
better for her and land is better for us. Thus we can treat 
Mexico like an equal, and do honor to ourselves. But what 
is it you ask ? You have taken from Mexico one-fourth of 
her territory, and you now propose to run a Ime comprehend- 
ing about another third ; and for what ? What has Mexico 
got from you for parting with two-thirds of her domain ? 
She has given you ample redress for every injury of which 
you have complained. She has submitted to the award of 
your commissioners, and, up to the time of the rupture with 
Texas, faithfully paid it. And for all that she has lost, what 
requital do we, her strong, rich, robust neighbor, make? 
Do we send our missionaries there to point the way to 
Heaven? Or do we send schoolmasters to pour daylight 
into her dark places, to aid her infant strength to conquer 
freedom, and reap the fruit pf the independence herself alone 
had won ? lN"o, no ; none of this do we. But we send regi- 
ments, storm towns, and our colonels prate of liberty in the 
midst of the solitudes their ravages have made. They pro- 
claim the empty forms of social compact, to a people bleeding 
and maimed with wounds received in defending their hearth- 
stones against the invasion of these very men who shoot 
them down and then exhort them to be free. Oh, Mr. Presi- 
dent, are you not the light of the earth, if not its salt ? 

What, Sir, is the territory which you propose to wrest 
from Mexico ? It is consecrated to the heart of the Mexican 
by many a well-fought battle with his old Castilian master. 
His Bunker Hills, and Saratogas, and Yorktowns, are there ! 
The Mexican can say : " There I bled for liberty, and shall I 
surrender that consecrated home of my affections to the 
Anglo-Saxon invaders ? What do they want with it ? They 
have Texas already. They have possessed themselves of the 
territory between the Nueces and the Rio Grande. What 
else do they want ? To what shall I point my children as 
memorials of that independence which I bequeath to them, 
when those battle-fields shall have passed from my pos- 
session ? " 

Sir, had one come and demanded Bunker Hill of the 
people of Massachusetts, — had England's lion ever showed 
himself there, — is there a man over thirteen and under ninety 



246 PATEIOTIC ELOQUENCE. 

who would not have been ready to meet him; is there a 
river on this continent that would not have run red with 
blood ; is there a field but would have been piled high with 
the unburied bones of slaughtered Americans, before these 
consecrated battle-fields of liberty should have been wrested 
from us ? 



Ex. Ql.TS..— INJUSTICE OF THE WAR AGAINST MEXICO. 

JOHN M. BERRIEN.* 

Sir : there is a responsibility direct, immediate, which may 
not be disregarded, which we are compelled to recognize. 
He is recreant from all the duties of an American senator, of 
an American citizen, who will not obey its behests. It is 
our responsibility to om* immediate constituents — to the 
American people. To them we must render an account of the 
origin of this war, of the manner iA which it is conducted, of the 
purposes for which it is prosecuted. That people, Sir, are 
awake to these inquiries. The excitement of feeling produced 
by the first intelligence from the Rio Grande, has given place to 
reflection. In the fervor of that feeling, they did not stop to 
inquire into the indignity offered to Mexico by the occupa- 
tion of a disputed territory — of a territory which we had 
ourselves admitted to be the subject of negotiation — of the 
erection of a fort on the eastern bank of the Rio Grande, and 
the pointing of our cannon on the town of Matamoras. All 
this was forgotten in the excitement of the moment. Amer- 
ican blood had been shed, and it must be avenged. They 
are calmer now ; that feeling has been appeased. Whatever 
indignity was offered by Mexican ofiicers to American arms, 
has been washed out by ly^exican blood, which flowed so 
copiously at Palo Alto, at Resaca de la Palma, and at 
Monterey. Great God ! Is not this suflicient atonement to 
Christian men ? Sir, the indignity has been expiated ; and 
now the inquiries are, with what views is this war still 
prosecuted? With what object has our army been pushed 
into the heart of Mexico ? What do you expect to gain, 
which it may consist with your honor, or even with your 
interest, to receive ? For what practical purposes, for what 

* U. S. Senator from Georgia. 



CIVIL WAR DEPRECATED. 247 

attainable objects, to wbat end, useful and honorable to the 
United States, is that army maintained there, and still urged 
onward, at such an expense of blood and treasure — ^loading 
us with a national debt, to be redeemed by a burdensome 
taxation, and involving a wanton sacrifice of the lives of our 
patriotic citizens who have flocked to the national standard ? 
Will you go before the American people, gallant, generous, 
noble-minded as you know they are, and tell them the 
national honor has been redeemed, the shed blood of our 
people has been avenged by the gallantry of our army, — and 
that now we are fighting to despoil a stricken foe of such 
portion of her territory as may indemnify us for the expense 
of vindicating our honor ? Believe me, they will reject the 
appeal with scorn and indignation. The inquiries I have 
presented wiU be reiterated in your ears ; not perhaps by 
politicians — certainly not by party presses — assuredly not by 
those ardent spirits who, tired of the dull pursuits of civil 
life, seek military glory at whatever cost ; — ^but they will be 
made by the patriotic yeomanry, by the merchant, the 
mechanic, the manufacturer, by men of all occupations — by 
the moral, religious, conservative portion of our countrymen, 
constituting in numbers a portion of the American people 
whose voice may not be disregarded. Mr. President, in the 
bustle of the public mart, in the quiet retirement of the 
domestic fireside, these inquiries and these reflections now 
press upon the minds of our countrymen with a force and 
intensity which I have no power to express, and I pray 
senators to receive, in the spirit in which it is offered, the 
warning which I give them, that they and that I must 
answer them. 



Ex. CLX.--(7/F7Z WAB DEPRECATED.'^ 
Speech in Congress, Feb. 1850. 

HENEY CLAY. 

If there be any who want civil war-^who want to see the 
blood of any portion of our countrymen spilt — I am not one 

*rrom Mr. Clay's speech urging the passage of his " Compromise Bill," or 
series of resolutions intended to allay the irritation on the subject of slavery 
which was threatening to divide the Union. His main propositions were, that 



248 PATEIOTIC ELOQUENCE. 

of them. I wish to see war of no kind ; but above all, I do 
not desire to see a civil war. When war begins, whether 
civil or foreign, no human foresight is competent to foresee 
when, or how, or where it is to terminate. But when a civil 
war shall be lighted up in the bosom of our own happy land, 
and armies are marching, and commanders are winning their 
victories, and fleets are in motion on our coasts — tell me if 
you can, tell me if any human being can tell, its duration ? 
God alone knows where such a war will end. 

I do not desire to see the lustre of one single star dimmed 
of that glorious confederacy which constitutes our political 
sun ; still less do I wish to see it blotted out, and its light 
obliterated forever. Has not the State of South Carolina 
been one of the members of this Union in " days that tried 
men's souls ? " Have not her ancestors fought by the side of 
our ancestors ? Have we not, conjointly, won together many 
a glorious battle ? If we had to go into a civil war w^th 
such a State, how would it terminate ? Whenever it should 
have terminated, what would be her condition ? If she 
should ever return to the Union, what would be the condition 
of her feelings and affections ? What the state of her heart 
and of the heart of her people ? She has been with us before, 
when our ancestors mingled in the throng of battle ; and as 
I hope our posterity will mingle with hers, for ages and cen- 
turies to come, in the the united defence of liberty, and for 
the honor and glory of the Union, I do not wish to see her 
degraded or defaced as a member of this confederacy. 

In conclusion, allow me to entreat and implore each in- 
dividual member of this body to bring into the consideration 
of this measure which I have had the honor of proposing, the 
same love of country which, if I know myself, has actuated me, 
and the same desire of restoring harmony to the Union w^hich 
has prompted this effort. If we can forget for a moment — 
but that would be asking too much of human nature^— if we 

California should be admitted into the Union without restrictions with respect 
to slavery ; that no provision should be made by law for the exclusion of 
slavery from any of the territory recently acquired from Mexico ; that it 
was inexpedient to abolish it in the District of Columbia, under existing cir- 
cumstances ; that Congress had no power to prohibit or obstruct trade in 
slaves between the slaveholding States, though it might be prohibited within 
the District as far as concerned slaves brought from other places ; and that 
more effectual provision ought to made by law for the restitution of fugitive 
slaves to their masters. After a long and stormy contest, bills were passed in 
accordance with these propositions, California having in the mean time adopted 
a State constitution excluding slavery from her limits. 



IMPOSSIBILITY OF PEACEABLE SECESSIOlir. 249 

could suppress, for one moment, party feelings and party 
causes, — and as I stand here before my God, I declare I have 
looked beyond these considerations, and regarded only the 
vast- interests of this united people, — I should hope that 
under such feelings and with such dispositions, we may ad- 
vantageously proceed to the consideration of this bill, and 
heal, before they are yet bleeding, the wounds of our dis- 
tracted country. 



Ex. CLXl.-~IMPOSSIBIZITY OF PEACEABLE SECESSION". 

Speech on Mr. Clay's resolutioiLS, March, "th, 1850. 

DANIEL WEBSTER. 

Peaceable secession ! Sir, your eyes and mine are never 
destined to see that miracle. The dismemberment of this 
vast country without convulsions ! The breaking up of the 
fountains of the great deep without ruffling the surface ! 
Who is so foolish— I beg everybody's pardon — as to expect 
to see any such thing ? Sir, he who sees the States now re- 
volving in hannony around a common centre, and expects to 
see them quit their places and fly off without convulsion, 
may look the next hour to see the heavenly bodies rush from 
their spheres, and jostle against each other in the realms of 
space, without causing the crush of the universe. There can 
be no such thing as peaceable secession. It is an utter im- 
possibility. Is the great Constitution under which we live, 
covering this whole country, — is it to be thawed and melted 
away by secession, as the snows on the mountain melt under 
the influence of a vernal sun, disappear almost unobserved, 
and run off? No, Sir ! I will not state what might pro- 
duce the disruption of the Union ; but I see, as plainly as I 
see the sun in heaven, what that disruption itself must pro- 
duce ; I see that it must produce war, and such a war as I 
will not describe, in its twofold character. 

Peaceable secession ! The concurrent agreement of all 
the members of this great Republic to separate ! Why, 
what would be the result ? Where is the line to be drawn ? 
What States are to secede ? What is to remain American ? 
What am I to be ? An American no longer ? Heaven 
forbid ! Where is the flag of the Republic to remain ? 
11* 



250 PATEIOTIC ELOQUENCE. 

Where is the eagle still to tower ? — or is he to cower and 
shrink, and fall to the ground ? Why, Sir, our ancestors- 
our fathers and our grandfathers, those of them that are yet 
living among us, with prolonged lives — would rebuke and 
reproach us, and our children and grandchildren would cry 
out shame upon us, if we of this generation should dishonor 
these ensigns of the power of the Government and the har- 
mony of the Union, which is every day felt among us with 
•so much joy and gratitude. What is to become of the 
* army ? What is to become of the navy ? What is to be- 
come of the public lands ? How is any one of thirty States 
to defend itself? 

And now, Mr. President, instead of speaking of the pos- 
sibility or utility of secession, instead of dwelling in these 
caverns of darkness, instead of groping with these ideas of 
all that is horrid and horrible, let us come out into the light 
of day ; let us enjoy the fresh air of Liberty and Union ; 
let us cherish those hopes which belong to us ; let us devote 
ourselves to those great objects that are fit for our consider- 
ation and our action ; let us raise our conceptions to the 
magnitude and the importance of the duties that devolve 
upon us ; let our comprehension be as broad as the country 
for which we act, our aspirations as high as its certain des- 
tiny ; let us not be pigmies in a case that calls for men. Let 
us make our generation one of the strongest and brightest 
links in that golden chain which is destined, I fondly believe, 
to grapple the people of all the States to this constitution- 
for aores to come. 



Ex. CLXII.— OiV^ THE ADMISSION OF CALIFORNIA INTO THE 

UNION 

Speech, in Congress, March. 11th, 1850. 

WILLIAM H. SEWARD.* 

Sir: when the founders of the Republic of the South 
come to draw those fearful lines, they will indicate what por- 
tions of the continent are to be broken off from their connec- 
tion with the Atlantic through the St. Lawrence, the Hudson, 

* At that time U. S. Senator from New York. 



ON THE ADMISSION OF CALIFORNIA. 251 

the Delaware, the Potomac and the Mississippi ; what portion 
of this people are to be denied the use of the lakes, the rail- 
roads and the canals, now constituting common and custo- 
mary avenues of travel, trade and social intercourse ; what 
families and kindred are to be separated and converted into 
enemies ; and what States are to feel the horrors of perpet- 
ual border warfare, aggravated by interminable horrors of 
servile insurrection. When those portentous lines shall be 
drawn, they will disclose what portion of this people is to 
retain the army and the navy and the flag of so many victo- 
ries ; and on the other hand, what portion of the people is 
to be subjected to new and onerous imposts, direct taxes and 
forced loans and conscriptions, to maintain an opposing army, 
an opposing navy, and the new and hateful banner of sedi- 
tion. Then the projectors of the new republic of the South 
will meet the question — and they may well prepare now to 
answer it — What is all this for ? What intolerable wrong, 
what unfraternal injustice have rendered these calamities un- 
avoidable ? The answer will be : All this is done to secure 
the institution of African Slavery. 

I have heard somewhat here, and almost for the first 
time in my life, of divided allegiance — of allegiance to the 
South and to the Union — of allegiance to States severally 
and to the Union. But for all this I know only one country 
and one sovereign — the United States of America and the 
American people. And such as is my allegiance, is the loy- 
alty of every other citizen of the United States. As I 
s^^eak he will speak when his time arrives. He knows no 
other country and no other sovereign. He has life, liberty, 
property, and precious affections and hopes for himself and 
his posterity, treasured up in the ark of the Union. He 
knows as well and feels ^as strongly as I do, that this govern- 
ment is his own government ; that he is a part of it ; that it 
w^as established for him and that it is maintained by him ; 
that it is the only truly wise, just, free and equal govern- 
ment that has ever existed ; that no other government could 
be so wise, just, free and equal ; and that it is safer and more 
beneficent than any which time or change could bring into 
its place. 



252 PATEIOTIC ELOQUENCE. 



Ex. CLXIIL—LIBUIiTY TRIUMPHANT. 

Address delivered on laying the comer-stone of the new wing of the Capitol at Wash- 
ington, July 4th, 1851. 

DANIEL WEBSTER. 

Ox the Fourth of July, 1776, the representatives of the 
United States of America, in Congress assembled, declared 
that these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, 
free and independent States. This declaration, made by 
most patriotic and resolute men, trusting in the justice of 
their cause and the protection of Heaven, and yet made not 
without deep solicitude and anxiety, — has now stood for sev- 
enty-five years, and still stands. It was sealed in blood. It 
has met dangers, and overcome them ; it has had enemies, 
and conquered them ; it has had detractors, and abashed 
them all ; it has had doubting friends, but it has cleared all 
doubts away; and now, to-day, raising its august form 
higher than the clouds, twenty millions of people contem- 
plate it with hallowed love, and the world beholds it, and 
the consequences which have followed from it, with pro- 
found admiration. 

This anniversary animates, and gladdens, and unites, all 
American hearts. On other days of the year we may be 
party men, indulging in controversies more or less important 
to the public good ; we may have likes and dislikes, and we 
may maintain our political differences, often with warm and 
sometimes with angry feelings. But to-day we are Ameri- 
cans all ; and all nothing but Americans. Every man's 
heart swells within him as he remembers that seventy-five 
years have rolled away and that the great inheritance of 
liberty is still his ; his, undiminished and unimpaired ; his, 
in all its original glory ; his to enjoy, his to protect, and his 
to transmit to future generations. 

If Washington was now among us, — ^if he could draw 
around him the shades of the great public men of his own 
days — patriots and warriors, orators and statesmen — and 
were to address us in their presence, would he not say to us : 
" Ye men of this generation, I rejoice and thank God for 
being able to see that our labors, and toils, and sacrifices 
were not in vain. You are prosperous, — you are happy, — 
you are grateful. The fire of liberty burns brightly and 
steadily in your hearts, while duty and law restrain it from 
bursting forth in v»"ild and destructive conflagration. Cherish 



A FOURTH OF JULY ADDRESS ON SECESSION. 253 

liberty as you love it ; cherish its securities as you wish to 
preserve it. Maintain the Constitution which we labored so 
painfully to establish, and which has been to you such a 
source of inestimable blessings. Preserve the Union of the 
States, cemented as it was by our prayers, our tears and our 
blood. Be true to God, to your country, and to your duty. 
So shall the whole Eastern world follow the morning sun, 
to contemplate you as a nation ; so shall all generations 
honor you as they honor us; and so shall the Almighty 
Power which so graciously protected us, and which now pro- 
tects you, shower its everlasting blessings upon you and 
your posterity ! " 

Great father of your country ! we heed your words ; we 
feel their force, as if you now uttered them with lips of flesh 
and blood. Your example teaches us, your afi*ectionate ad- 
dresses teach us, your public life teaches us, the value of the 
blessings of the tjnion. Those blessings our fathers have 
tasted, and we have tasted, and still taste. Nor do we in- 
tend that those who come after us shall be denied the same 
high fruition. Our honor, as well as our happiness, is con- 
cerned. We can not, we dare not, we w^ill not, betray our 
sacred trust. "We will not filch from posterity the treasure 
placed in our hands to be transmitted to future generations. 
The bow that gilds the clouds in the heavens, the pillars 
that uphold the firmament, may disappear and fall away in 
the hour appointed by the will of God ; but, until that day 
comes, or so long as our lives may last, no ruthless hand 
shall undermine that bright arch of Union and Liberty 
which spans tl^e continent from Washington to California ! 



Ex. CLXIV.— ^ FOURTH OF JULY ADDRESS ON SFCFSSION* 



FKANCIS LIEBER. 



I ASK, will any one who desires secession for the sake of 
bringing about a Southern Confederacy, honestly aver that 
he would insist upon a provision in the new constitution se- 
curing the full right of secession whenever it may be desired 
by any member of the expected Confederacy ? 

* In the year 1850, after the admission of California as a free State, seces- 
sion was urged by a strong party in South Carolina ; but when a convention 



254 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE. 

To secede, then, requires revolution. Revolution for what ? 
To remedy certain evils. And how are they to be remedied ? 
It is a rule laid down among all the authorities of interna- 
tional law and ethics, that to be justified in going to war it 
is not sufficient that right be on our side. We must also 
have a fair prospect of success in our favor. This rule ap- 
plies with far greater force to revolutions. The Jews who 
rose against Vespasian had all the right, I dare say, on their 
side ; but their undertaking was not a warrantable one for all 
that. We, however, should we have sufficient right on our 
side for plunging into a revolution — for letting loose a civil 
war ? Does the system against which we should rise contain 
within its own bosom no peaceful, lawful remedies ? 

We are often told that our forefathers plunged into a rev- 
olution, why should not we ? Even if the two cases were 
comparable, which they are obviously not, I would ask, on 
the other hand. Are we to have a revolution every fifty 
years ? Give me the Muscovite Czar rather than live under 
such a government, if government it could be called. I am 
a good swimmer, but I should not like to spend my life in 
whirlpools. And does the question of right or wrong, of 
truth and justice, go for nothing in revolutions ? 

lli^or would the probability of success be in our favor, since 
it is certain that secession can not take place without war, and 
this war must end in one or the other of two ways. It must 
either kindle a general conflagration, or we must suffer, sin- 
gle-handed, the consequences of our rashness — bitter if we 
succeed in lopping ourselves off from the trunk, bitter if we 
can not succeed. Unsuccessful revolutions are not only mis- 
fortunes, they become stigmas. And what if the conflagration 
becomes general ? Let us remember that it is a rule which 
pervades all history, because it pervades every house, that the 
enmity of contending parties is implacable and venomous in 
the same degree as they have previously stood near each 
other, or as nature intended the relation of good will to exist 
between them. It is the secret of all civil and religious wars ; 

was held in Charleston, it was found that the so-called Co-operationists — that 
is to say, those who were in favor of secession, indeed, but only conjointly 
with other States, — were in the majority. The Union-men of the State, desir- 
ous of doing, on their part, whatever might be in their power to strengthen 
the Union feeling, resolved, in 1851, to celebrate, by a mass-meeting at Green- 
ville, S. C, the Fourth of July, a day already then frequently spoken of with 
little respect. Dr. Lieber, the author of the above address, was at that time 
Professor of History and Political Economy in the South Carolina College at 
Columbia. — - 



A FOUETH OF JULY ADDKESS ON SECESSION. 255 

it is the secret of divided families ; it is the explanation of 
unrelenting hatred between those who once were bosom 
friends. Our war would be the repetition of the Peloponne- 
sian War, or of the German Thirty Years' War, with still 
greater bitterness between the enemies, because it would be 
far more unnatural. It would shed the dismal glare of bar-, 
barism on the nineteenth century. Have they that long for 
separation forgotten that England, at first behind Germany, 
France, Italy, and Spain, rapidly outstripped all, because 
earlier united, without permitting the crown to absorb the 
people's rights? The separation of the South from the 
North would speedily produce a manifold disrupture, and 
bring us back to a heptarchy, which was no government of 
seven, but a state of things where many worried all. If there 
be a book which I would recommend, before all others, to read 
at this juncture, that book is Thucydides. It reads as if it had 
been written to make us pause ; as if the orators introduced 
there had spoken expressly for our benefit ; as if the fallacies 
of our days had all been used and exposed at that early time ; 
and as if in that book a very mirror was held up for our ad- 
monition. Or we may peruse the history of cumbered, ailing 
Germany, deprived of unity, dignity, strength, wealth, peace, 
and liberty, because her unfortunate princes have pursued, 
with never-ceasing eagerness, what is called in that country 
particularism — that is, hostility of the parts to the whole of 
Germany, and after the downfall of ISTapoleon preferred the 
salvation of their petty sovereignties, conferred upon them 
by !N"apoleon, to the grandeur, peace, and strength of their 
common country. The history of Germany, the battlefield 
of Europe for these three centuries, will tell you what idol 
we should worship, were we to toss our blessings to the 
winds, and were we to deprive mankind of the proud exam- 
ple inviting to imitation. 

I, for one, dare not do anything toward the disruption of 
the Union. Situated, as we are, between Europe and Asia, 
on a fresh continent, I see the finger of God in it. I believe 
our destiny to be a high, a great, and a solemn one, before 
Avhich the discussions now agitating us shrink into much 
smaller dimensions than they appear if we pay exclusive at- 
tention to them. I have come to this country, and pledged 
a voluntary oath to be faithful to it, and I will keep this oath. 
This is my country from the choice of manhood, and not by 
chance of birth. In my position, as a servant of the state, 
in a public institution of education, I have imposed upon 



256 PATEIOTIC ELOQUENCE. 

myself the duty of using jny influence with the young neither 
one way nor the other in this discussion. I have scrupulous- 
ly and conscientiously adhered to it in all my teaching and 
intercourse. There is not a man or a youth that can gainsay 
this. But I am a man and a citizen, and as such I have a 
right, or the duty, as the case may be, to speak my mind and 
my inmost convictions on solemn occasions before my fellow- 
citizens, and I have thus not hesitated to make these remarks. 
Take them, gentlemen, for what they may be worth. They 
are, at any rate, sincere and fervent ; and, whatever judgment 
others may pass upon them, or whatever attacks may be lev- 
elled against them, no one will be able to say that they can 
have been made to promote any individual advantages. God 
save the commonwealth ! God save the common land ! 



Ex. CLTV.— ELEGY. 

On the death of Clay, CaUioTin and Webster.— 1850-52. 

THOMAS BUCHANAN READ. 

The great are falling from us ; to the dust 
Our flag droops midway, full of many sighs ; 

A nation's glory and a people's trust 
Lie in the ample pall where Webstee lies. 

The great are falling from us, one by one, 
As fell the patriarchs of the forest trees ; 

The wind shall seek them vainly, and the sun 
Gaze on their vacant place for centuries. 

Lo ! Carolina mourns her steadfast pine, 

That like a mainmast towered above her realm ; 

And Ashland hears no more the voice divine 
From out the branches of her graceful elm ; 

And Marshfield's giant oak, w^hose stormy brow 
Oft turned the ocean-tempest from the West, 

Lies on the shore it guarded long ; and now 
Our startled eagle knows not where to rest. 



THE AMERICAN SAILOE. 257 



Ex. CLXVL— THE AMERICAN SAILOR. 

R. F. STOCKTON. 

Look to yoiir history — that part of it which the world 
knows by heart — and you will find on its brightest page the 
glorious achievements of the American sailor. He, at least, 
has never disgraced his country ; he has always been ready 
to serve her ; he always has served her faithfully and effect- 
ually. He has often been weighed in the balance and never 
found wanting. The only fault ever found with him is that 
he sometimes fights ahead of his orders. The world has no 
match for him, man for man, and he asks no odds, he cares 
for no odds, Avhen the cause of humanity or the glory of his 
country calls him to fight. "WTio, in the darkest days of our 
Revolution, carried your flag into the very chops of the 
British channel, bearded the lion in his den, and woke the 
echoes of old Albion's hills by the thunders of his cannon, 
and the shouts of his tnumph ? It was the American sailor. 
And the names of John Paul Jones and the Bon Homme 
Richard will go down the annals of time forever. Who 
struck the first blow that humbled the Barbary flag, which 
for a hundred years had been the terror of Christendom — 
drove it from the Mediterranean, and put an end to the 
infamous tribute it had been accustomed to extort ? It was 
the American sailor. And the name of Decatur and his gal- 
lant companions will be as lasting as monumental brass. In 
your war of 1812, when your arms on shore were covered 
by disaster — when Winchester had been defeated, when the 
army of the Northwest had surrendered, and when the gloom 
of despondency hung like a cloud over the land, who first 
relit the fires of national glory, and made the welkin ring 
with the shouts of victory ? It was the American sailor. 
And the names of Hull and the Constitution will be remem- 
bered as long as we have anything left worth remembering. 
That was no small event. The wand of Mexican prowess 
was broken on the Rio Grande. The wand of British invin- 
cibility was broken when the flag of the Guerriere came 
doT\Ti. That one event was worth more to the Republic than 
all the money which has ever been expended for the navy. 
lince that day, the navy has had no stain upon its escutcheon, 
but has been cherished as your pride and glory. And the 
American sailor has established a reputation throughout the 
world — in peace and in war, in storm and in battle — for hero- 



258 PATEIOTIC ELOQUENCE. 

ism and prowess unsurpassed. He shrinks from no danger, 
dreads no foe, and yields to no superior. No shoals are too 
dangerous, no seas too boisterous, no climate too rigorous for 
him. The burning sun of the tropics can not make him effem- 
inate, nor can the eternal winter of the polar seas paralyze 
his energies. Foster, cherish, develop these characteristics, 
by a generous and paternal government. Excite his emula- 
tion and stimulate his ambition ; inspire him with love and 
confidence for your service, and there is no achievement so 
arduous, no conflict so desperate, in which his actions will 
not shed glory upon his country And when the final strug- 
gle comes, as come it will, for the empire of the seas, you 
may rest with entire confidence in the persuasion that victory 
will be yours. 



Ex. CLXVIL—OLB IRONSIDES.'' 



OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 

Aye ! tear her tattered ensign down ! 

Long has it waved on high. 
And many an eye has danced to see 

That banner in the sky. 
Beneath it rang the battle-shout. 

And burst the cannon's roar ; 
T^he meteor of the ocean air 

Shall sweep the clouds no more. 

Her deck, — once red with heroes' blood, 

Where knelt the vanquished foe. 
When winds were hurrying o'er the flood, 

And waves were white below, — 
ISTo more shall feel the victor's tread, 

Or know the conquered knee ; 
The harpies of the shore shall pluck 

The eagle of the sea ! 

Oh ! better that her shattered hulk 
Should sink beneath the wave ; 

The United States frigate Constitution, employed in the war of 1812-15. 



EIGHTY TEAES AGO. 259 

Her thunders shook the mighty deep 

And there should be her grave. 
Nail to the mast her holy flag, 

Set every threadbare sail, 
And give her to the God of storms, 

The lightning and the gale ! 



Ex. GLKYTR.— EIGHTY YEARS AGO. 

CHARLES SPRAGUE. 

Eighty years have rolled away 
Since that high, heroic day. 
When our fathers, in the fray, 

Struck the conquering blow ! 
Praise to them — the bold who spoke ; 
Praise to them — ^the brave who broke 
Stern oppression's galling yoke, 

Eighty years ago ! 

Pour the wine of sacrifice. 
Let the grateful anthem rise ; 
Shall we e'er resign the prize ? 

Never, never ! No ! 
Hearts and hands shall guard those rights, 
Bought on Freedom's battle heights, 
Where he fixed his signal lights, 

Eighty years ago ! 

Swear it ! by the mighty dead — 
Those who counselled, those who led; 
By the blood your fathers shed, 

By your mothers' woe ; 
Swear it by the living few. 
Those whose breasts were scarred for you. 
When to Freedom's ranks they flew. 

Eighty years ago ! 

By the joys that cluster round, 
By our vales with plenty crowned. 
By our hill-tops — holy ground, 
Rescued from the foe, 



260 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE. 

^ Where of old the Indian strayed, 
Where of old the Pilgrim prayed, 
Where the Patriot drew his blade, 
Eighty years ago ! 

Should again the war trump peal, 
There shall Indian firmness seal 
Pilgrim faith and patriot zeal, 

Prompt to strike the blow ; 
There shall Valor's work be done ; 
Like the sire shall be the son, 
Where the fight was waged and won, 

Eighty years ago ! 



Ex. CLnX.—BI!ASOm FOB CELEBRATING THE FOURTH 
OF JULY. 

From an address delivered at Chicago, July 10, 1858. 

ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

We are now a mighty nation ; we are thirty or about 
thirty millions of people, and we own and inhabit about one- 
fifteenth part of the dry land of the whole earth. We run 
our memory back over the pages of history for about eighty- 
two years, and we, discover that we were then a very small 
people in point of numbers, vastly inferior to what we are 
now, with a vastly smaller extent of country, with vastly 
less of everything we deem desirable among men ; we look 
upon the change as exceedingly advantageous to us and our 
posterity, and we fix upon something that happened a long 
way back as in some way or other being connected with this 
rise of prosperity. We find a race of men living in that day 
whom we claim as our fathers and grandfathers ; they were 
iron men ; they fought for the principle they were contend- 
ing for ; and we understand that by what they then did it 
has followed that the degree of prosperity we now enjoy has 
come to us. We hold an annual celebration to remind our- 
selves of all the good done in this process of time ; of how 
it was done and who did it, and how we are historically con- 
nected with it, and we go from these meetings in better 
humor with ourselves ; we feel more attached the one to the 



THE FOURTH OF JULY. 261 

other, and more firmly bound to the country we inhabit. In 
every way we are better men for these celebrations. But 
after we have done all this, we have not yet reached the 
whole. There is something else connected with it. We have 
besides these, men among us descended by blood from our 
ancestors, who are not descendants of these men of the 
Revolution, they ai'e men who have come from Europe — 
German, Irish, French and Scandinavian — who have come 
fi'om Europe themselves, or whose ancestors have settled 
here, finding themselves our equals in all things. If they 
look back through this history to trace their connection with 
those days by blood, they find they have none ; they can not 
carry themselves back into that glorious epoch and make 
themselves feel that they are part of us, but when they look 
through that old Declaration of Independence they find that 
those old men say : " We hold these truths to be self-evident, 
that all men are created equal ; " and then they feel that the 
moral sentiment taught in that day evinces their relation to 
those men ; that it is the father of all moral principle in 
them, and that they have a right to claim it as though they 
were blood of the blood and flesh of the flesh of the men 
who wrote that Declaration ; and so they are. That is the 
electric cord in our Declaration which links the hearts of 
patriotic and liberty-loving men together ; that will link 
those patriotic hearts as long as the love of freedom exists, 
in the minds of men throughout the world. 



CLXK.—TEB FOURTH OF JULY. 

J. PIERPONT. 

Day of glory ! welcome day ! 
Freedom's banners greet thy ray ; 
See ! how cheerftilly they play 

With thy morning breeze. 
On the rocks where pilgrims kneeled, 
On the heights where squadrons wheeled, 
When a tyrant's thunder pealed 

O'er the trembling seas. 

God of armies ! Did thy " stars 
In their courses" smite his cars, 



262 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE. 

Blast his arms and wrest his bars 

From the heaving tide ? 

On our standard, lo ! they burn, 

And when days like this return, 

Sparkle o'er the soldier's urn 

Who for freedom died. 

God of peace ! whose spirit fills 
All the echoes of our hills, 
All the murmurs of our rills, 

Now the storm is o'er ; 
Oh, let freemen be our sons ; 
And let future Washingtons 
Rise, to lead their valiant ones, 

Till there's war no more. 

By the patriot's hallowed rest, 
By the warrior's gory breast. 
Never let our graves be pressed 

By a despot's throne ; 
By the Pilgrims' toils and cares, 
By their battles and their prayers. 
By their ashes — let our heirs 

Bow to Thee alone. 



Ex. CLXXI.— !Z!S2' CEISIS. 

JOHN GREENLEAP WHITTIER. 

The crisis presses on us ; face to face with us it stands, 
With solemn lips of question, like the Sphynx in Egypt's 

sands ! 
This day we fashion Destiny ; our web of fate we spin ; 
This day for all hereafter choose we holiness or sin; 
Even now from starry Gerizim, or Ebal's cloudy crown. 
We call the dews of blessing, or the bolts of cursing down ! 

By all for which the martyrs bore their agony and shame ; 
By all the warning words of trath with which the Prophets 

came; 
By the future which awaits us ; by all the hopes which cast 



SECESSION AS VIEWED BY A VIEGINIAN. 263 

'heir faint and trembling beams across the blackness of the 

Past, 

ind in the awful name of Him who for earth's freedom died ; 
ye people ! O, my brothers ! let us choose the righteous 

side ! 

So shall the hardy pioneer go joyful on his way, 

To wed Penobscot's waters to San Francisco's bay ; 

|To make the rugged places smooth, and sow the vales with 

gram, 

I And bear, with Liberty and Law, the Bible in his train; 
The mighty West shall bless the East, and sea shall answer 

sea. 
And mountain unto mountain call, Peaise God, foe we aee 

FEEE ! 



Ex. CLXXn,— SECESSION AS VIEWED BY A VIRGINIAN. 

Speecli in the House of Delegates of Virginia, MarcliSOtli, 1861. 

JOSEPH SEGAR. 

Foe what, Mr. Speaker, are we plunging into the dark 
abyss of disunion? In God's name, tell me ! I vow I do not 
know, nor have I ever heard one sensible or respectable rea- 
son assigned for this harsh resort. We shall lose everything ; 
gain nothing but war, blood, carnage, famine, starvation, so- 
cial desolation, wretchedness in all its aspects, ruin in all its 
forms. We shall gain a taxation, to be levied by the new 
government, that will eat out the substance of the people, 
and make them "poor indeed." We shall gain alienation 
and distrust in all the dear relations of life. We shall gain 
ill-blood between father and son, and brother and brother, 
and neighbor and neighbor. Bereaved widowhood and help- 
less orphanage we shall gain to our heart's content. • Lamen- 
tation, and mourning, and agonized hearts we shall gain in 
every corner where " wild war's deadly blast " shall blow. 
We shall gain the prostration — most lamentable calamity 
will it be — of that great system of internal development, 
which the statesmen of Virginia have looked to as the basis 
of all her future progress and grandeur, and the great hope 
of her speedy regeneration and redemption. We shall gain 



264 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE. 

repudiation, not that Virginia will ever be reluctant to redeem 
her engagements, but that she will be disabled by the heavy 
burdens of secession and war. We shall gain the blockade 
of our ports, and entire exclusion from the commerce, and 
markets, and storehouses of the world. We shall gain the 
hardest times the people of this once happy country have 
known since the War of Independence. I know not, indeed, 
of one single interest of Virginia that will not be wrecked 
by disunion. And, entertaining these views, I do shrink 
with horror from the very idea of the secession of the State. 
I can never assent to the fatal measure. No ! I am for the 
Union yet. Call me submissionist, or traitor, or what else 
you will, I am for the Union while Hope's light flickers in 
the socket. In Daniel Webster's immortal words, give me 
"Liberty and Union — now and forever — one and inseparable." 



Ex. CLXKUI.—FAZSB PROPHETS. 

EMELINE S. SMITH. 

Who said that the stars on our banner were dim — 

That their glory had faded away ? 
Look up, and behold ! how bi-ight, through each fold, 

They are flashmg and smiling to-day. 
Some wandering meteors only have paled — 

They shot from their places on high ; 
But the fixed and the true still illumine the blue, 

And will while the Ages go by ! 

Who said the fair temple, so patiently reared 

By heroes, at Liberty's call. 
Was built insecure^that it could not endure — 

And was tott'r^' e'en now to its fall ? 
False, false, every word ; for that fame is upheld 

By the stoutest of hearts and of hands ; 
Some columns unsound may have gone to the ground, 

But proudly the temple yet stands. 



SHALL WE GIVE UP THE UiaON ? 265 

Ex. CL^KXrV.— SHALL WE GIVE UP THE UNION? 

Speech Delivered at New York, May 20, 1861. 

DANIEL S. DICKINSON. 

Shall we tlien sun-ender to turbulence, and faction, and 
rebellion, and give up the Union with all its elements of 
good, all its holy memories, all its hallowed associations, all 
its blood-bought history ? 

No ! let the eagle change his plume, 
The leaf its hue, the flower its bloom — 

But do not give up the Union. Preserve it to " flourish in im- 
mortal youth," until it is dissolved amid " the wreck of mat- 
ter and the crash of worlds." Let the patriot and statesman 
stand by it to the last, whether assailed by foreign or domes- 
tic foes, and if he perishes in the conflict, let him fall like 
Rienzi, the last of the Tribunes, upon the same stand where 
he has preached liberty and equality to his countrymen. 
Preserve it in the name of the Fathers of the Revolution 

-preserve it for its great elements of good — preserve it in 
the sacred name of liberty — preserve it for the faithful and 
devoted lovers of the Constitution in the rebellious States — 
those who are persecuted for its support, and are dying in 
its defence. Rebellion can lay down its arms to Government 

-Government can not surrender to rebellion. 
Give up the Union ! — " this fair and fertile plain, to bat- 
ten on that moor ! " Divide the Atlantic so that its tides 
shall beat in sections, that some spurious Neptune may rule 
in an ocean of his ovm. — draw a line upon the sun's disc, that 
it may cast its beams upon earth in divisions — let the moon, 
like Bottom in the play, show but half its face — separate the 
constellation of the Pleiades and sunder the bands of Orion 
— but retain the Union ! 

Give up the Union, with its glorious flag — its stars and 

L'ipes, full of proud and pleasing and honorable recollec- 
tions, for the spurious invention with no antecedents but the 
liistory of a violated Constitution and of lawless ambition ! 
Xo ! let us stand by the emblem of our fathers : 

" Flag of the free heart's hope and home, 

By angel hands to valor given, 
Thy stars have ht the welkin dome, 

And all thy hues were bom in Heaven." 

12 



266 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE. 

Give up the Union ? Never ! The Union shall endure, and 
its praises shall be heard, when its friends and its foes, those 
who support and those who assail, those who bared their bo- 
soms in its defence, and those who aim their daggers at its 
heart, shall all sleep in the dust together. Its name shall be 
heard with veneration amid the roar of Pacific's waves, away 
upon the rivers of the l!^orth and East, where liberty is di- 
vided from monarchy, and be wafted in gentle breezes upon 
the Rio Grande. It shall rustle in the harvest and wave in 
the standing corn, on the extended prairies of the West, and 
be heard in the bleating folds and lowing herds upon a thou- 
sand hills. It shall be with those who delve in mines, and 
shall hum in the manufactories of New England, and in the 
cotton-gins of the South. It shall be proclaimed by the 
stars and stripes in every sea of the earth, as the American 
Union, one and indivisible ; upon the great thoroughfares, 
wherever steam drives and engines throb and shriek, its 
greatness and perpetuity shall be hailed with gladness. It 
shall be lisped in the earliest words, and ring in the merry 
voices of childhood, and swell to heaven upon the song of 
maidens. It shall live in the stern resolve of manhood, and 
rise to the mercy-seat upon woman's gentle, availing prayer. 
Holy men shall invoke its perpetuity at the altars of religion, 
and it shall be whispered in the last accents of expiring age. 
Thus shall survive and be perpetuated the American Union, 
and when it shall be proclaimed that time shall be no more, 
and the curtain shall fall, and the good shall be gathered to 
a more perfect union, still may the destiny of our dear land 
recognize the conception, that 

" Perfumes, as of Eden, flowed sweetly along, 
And a voice, as of angels, awoke the glad song, 
Columbia, Columbia, to glory arise, 
The queen of the world, and the child of the skies ! " 



Ex. CLXXV.— ^ SONG ON OUR COUNTRY AND HER FLAG, 

Written in 1861, on the Raising of the Flag on Columbia College, New York, after the 
Attack on Fort Sumter. 

FRANCIS LIEBER. 

We do not hate our enemy — 

May God deal gently with us all. 
We love our land ; we fight her foe ; 

We hate his cause, and that must fall. 



A SONG ON OCR COUNTKY AND HER FLAG. 267 

Our country is a goodly land ; 

We'll keep her alway whole and hale ; 
We'll love her, live for her or die ; 

To fall for her is not to fail. 

Our Flag ! The red shall mean the blood 
We gladly pledge ; and let the white 

Mean purity and solemn truth, 
Unsullied justice, sacred right. 

Its blue, the sea we love to plough, 

That laves the heaven-united land, 
Between the Old and Older World, 

From strand, o'er mount and stream, to strand. 

The blue reflects the crowding stars, 

Blight union-emblem of the free ; 
Come, all of you, and let it wave — 

That floating piece of poetry. 

Our fathers came and planted fields. 
And manly Law, and schools of truth ; 

They planted Self-Rule, which we'll guard 
By word and sword, in age, in youth. 

Broad freedom came along with them 

On History's ever- widening wings. 
Our blessing this, our task and toil ; 

For " arduous are all noble things." 

Let Emp'ror never rule this land, 

Nor fitful Crowd, nor senseless Pride. 
Our Master is our self-made Law ; 
To him we bow, and none beside. 

Then sing and shout for our free land, 
For glorious FREELAND'S victory ; 

Pray that in turmoil and in peace 
FREEL AIS^D our land may ever be ; 

That faithful we be found and strong 
When History builds as corals build, 

Or when she rears her granite walls — 
Her moles with crimson mortar filled. 



268 PATEIOTIC ELOQUENCE. 



Ex. CLXXYI.—NUVBR, OH NOW. 



OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 



Listen, young heroes ! Your country is calling ! 

Time strikes the hour for the brave and the true ; 
Now, while the foremost are fighting and falling, 

Fill up the ranks that have opened for you ! 

You whom the fathers made free and defended, 
Stain not the scroll that emblazons their fame ! 

You whose fair heritage spotless descended. 
Leave not your children a birthright of shame ! 

Stay not for questions while Freedom stands gasping ! 

Wait not till Honor lies wrapped in his pall ! 
Brief the lips' meeting be, swift the hands' clasping — 

" Off for the wars ! " is enough for them all. 

Break from the arms that would fondly caress you ! 

Hark, 'tis the bugle-blast ! sabres are drawn ! 
Mothers shall pray for you, fathers shall bless you, 

Maidens shall weep for you when you are gone ! 

Never, or now ! cries the blood of a nation, 

Poured on the turf where the red rose shall bloom ; 

Now is the day and the hour of salvation — 
Never, or now ! peals the trumpet of doom. 

From the foul dens where your brothers are dying, 
Aliens and foes in the land of their birth. 

From the rank swamps where our martyrs are lying, 
Pleading in vain for a handful of earth ; 

From the hot plains where they perish outnumbered, 
Furrowed and ridged by the battle-field's plough, 

Comes the loud summons ; too long have you slumbered- 
Hear the last angel-trump — Never, or Now ! 



APPEAL TO SECESSIONISTS. 269 



Ex. CLXX.YII.—AFFBAZ TO SIJCBSSIOmSTS, 

From an Address Delivered before th.e Literary Societies of Amherst College, 
July lOth, 1861. 

DANIEL S. DICKINSON. 

You desire peace ! Then lay down your arms and you 
shall have it. It was peace when you took them up — it will 
be peace when you lay them down. It will be peace when 
you abandon war and return to your accustomed pursuits. 
When the government of our fathers shall be again recog 
nized, when the Constitution and the laws to which every 
citizen owes allegiance shall be observed and obeyed ; then 
will the armies of the Constitution and the Union disband, 
by a common impulse, in obedience to a unanimous popular 
will. War is emphatically, and more especially is a war be- 
tween brethren, a disgrace to civilization ; and any war is a 
drain upon the life-blood of a nation, and originates in wrong. 
Its evils can not be written, even in human blood. It sweeps 
our race from earth, as if Heaven had repented the making 
of man. It lays its skinny hand upon society, and leaves it 
deformed by wretchedness and black with gore. It marches 
on its mission of destruction through a red sea of blood, and 
tinges the fruits of earth with a sanguine hue, as the mul- 
berry reddened in sympathy with the romantic fate of the 
devoted lovers. It " spoils the dance of youthful blood," 
and writes sorrow and grief prematurely upon the glad 
brow of childhood. It chills the heart and hope of youth. 
It drinks the" life-current of early manhood, and brings down 
the gray hairs of the aged with sorrow to the grave. It 
weaves the widow's weeds with the bridal wreath, and our 
land, like Rama, is filled with wailing and lamentation. It 
lights up the darkness with the flames of happy homes. It 
consumes, like the locusts of Egypt, every living thing in its 
pathway. It wrecks fortunes, brings bankruptcy and repu- 
diation, and blasts the fields of the husbandman — it depopu- 
lates towns, and leaves cities a modern Herculaneum. It 
desolates the firesides, and covers the family dwelling with 
gloom, and an awful vacancy rests where, like the haunted 
mansion ; 

" No human figure stirred to go or come, 

No face looked forth from open door or casement, 
No chimney smoked ; there was no sign of home 
From parapet to basement. 



270 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE. 

" No dog was on the threshold, great or small, 
No pigeon on the roof, no household creature, 
No cat demurely dozing on the wall, 
Not one domestic feature." 

It loads the people with debts to pass down from one gene- 
ration to another, like the curse of original sin ; upon its 
merciless errand of violence, it fills the land with crime and 
tumult and rapine, and it " gluts the grave with untimely- 
victims and peoples the world of perdition." Yet, ruthless 
as is the sw^ay, and devastating as is the course of war, it is 
not the greatest of evils nor the last lesson in humiliation. 
" Sweet are the uses of adversity." In its current of violence 
and blood, it may purify an atmosphere too long surcharged 
with discontent, and corruption, and apostasy, and treachery, 
and littleness, and prove how jDOor a remedy it is for social 
grievances. It may correct the dry-rot of demoralization in 
public station, and raise us, as a people, above the dead level 
of a mean and morbid ambition. It may scatter the tribe of 
bloated hangers-on who seek to serve their country that they 
may plunder and betray it ; and, above all, it may arouse 
the popular mind to a just sense of its responsibility, until 
it shall select its servants with care, and hold them to a faith- 
ful discharge of their duty ; until deficient morals shall be 
held questionable, falsehood a social fault, violation of truth 
a disqualification, and bribery a disgrace — until integrity 
shall be a recommendation, and treason and larceny crimes. 



Ex. CLXXVIlL—UIi^SJSJSN^ SPIRITS. 

Oh, INTorth and South, 'twas not by chance, 

Still less by fraud or fear, 
That Sumter's battle came and closed, 

Nor cost the world a tear. 
'Twas not that Northern hearts were weak, 

Or Southern courage cold, 
That shell and shot fell harming not 

A man on shore or hold. 

It was that all their ghosts who lived 

To love the realm they made, 
Came flitting so athwart the fire, 

That shot and shell were stayed. 



ALL OP THEM. ^ 271 

Washington with his sad still face, 

Franklin with silver hair, 
Lincoln and Putnam, Allen, Gates, 

And gallant Wayne were there. 

With those who rose at Boston, 

At Philadelphia met ; 
Whose grave eyes saw the Union's seal 

To their first charter set. 
Adams and Jay and Henry, 

Rutledge and Randolph, too — 
And many a name their country's fame 

Hath sealed brave, wise and true. 

An awful host — above the coast, 

About the fort they hung ; 
Sad faces pale, too proud to wail, 

But with sore anguish wrung. 
And Faith and Truth, and Love and Ruth, 

Hovered the battle o'er. 
Hindering the shot, that freight of death 

Between those brothers bore. 

And thus it happed, by God's good grace, 

And those good spirits' band. 
That Death forbore the leaguered place. 

The battery-guarded strand. 
Thanks unto Heaven on bended knee, 

!Srot scoff from mocking scorn, 
Befits us, that to bloodless end 

A strife like this is borne. 



Ex. CLXXIX.— " ALL OF THEM:' 

A True Story. 

With head erect, and lips compressed, 
He throws his hammer by ; 

The purpose of his manly breast 
Is now to do or die. 



272 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE. , 

He seeks the camp : " Put down my name : 

My boys will mind the shop ; 
If the rebels want my heart's best blood, 

I'll sell it drop by drop. 

And now- here comes my oldest boy; 

My son, what would you do ? " 
" Father, my brother will drive the trade ; 

I've come to fight with you." 

" God bless him ! Well, put down his name ; 

I can not send him home ; 
But here's the other boy, I see — 

My son, what made you come ? '* 

" Father, I could not work alone ; 

The shop may go to grass ; 
I've come to fight for the good old flag ; 

Stand off here ; let me pass." 

" Yes, put him down — he 's a noble boy ; 

I've two that are younger still ; 
They'll drive the plough on the Flushing farm, 

And work with a right good will. / 

" My stars ! and here comes one of them ! 

My son, you must not go ! " 
" Father, when rebels are marching on, 

I cannot plough or sow." 

" Well, thank God, there is one left yet ; 

He will plough and sow what he can ; 
But he's only a boy, and can never do 

The work of a full-grown man.'' 

With a proud, full heart the blacksmith turned, 

And walked to the other side ; 
For he felt a weakness he almost scorned, 

And a tear he fain would hide. 

They told him then, that his youngest boy 
Was putting his name on the roll ; 

" It must not be," said the brave old man ; 
" ]^o, no, he's the light of my soul ! " 



STAND BY THE FLAG. 273 

But the lad came up with a beaming face, 

Which bore neither fears nor cares ; 
" Father, say nothing — my name is down ; 

I have let out thefann on shares ! " 

And now they have marched to the tented field. 
And when the wild battle shall come, 

They'll strike a full blow for the Stars and Stripes, 
For God, and their country and home. 



Ex. Qlu-^XX.— STAND BY THE FLAG ! 

Letter to Kentuckians, Written from WasMngton, May 31, 1861. 

JOSEPH HOLT. 

Let us twine each thread of the glorious tissue of our 
country's flag about our heart strings, and looking upon our 
homes and catching the spirit that breathes upon us from the 
battle-fields of our fathers, let us resolve that, come weal or 
woe, we will in life and in death, now and forever, stand by 
the Stars and Stripes. They have floated over our cradles, 
let it be our prayer and our struggle that they shall float 
over our graves. They have been unfurled from the snows of 
Canada to the plains of ]N'ew Orleans, to the halls of the Mon- 
tezumas, and amid the solitude of every sea, and everywhere, 
as the luminous symbol of resistless and beneficent power, 
they have led the brave and the free to victory and to glory. 

It has been my fortune to look upon this flag in foreign 
lands, and amid the gloom of an Oriental despotism, and 
right well do I know, by contrast, how bright are its stars 
and how sublime its inspirations ! If this banner, the em- 
blem for us of all that is grand in human history, and of all 
that is transporting in human hope, is to be sacrificed on the 
altars of a satanic ambition, and thus disappear forever amid 
the night and tempest of revolution, then will I feel — and 
who shall estimate the desolation of that feeling ? — that the 
sun has indeed been stricken from the sky of our lives, and 
that henceforth we shall be wanderers and outcasts, with 
nought but the bread of sorrow and of penury for our lips, 
and with hands ever outstretched in feebleness and supplica- 
tion, on' which, in any hour, a military tyrant may rivet the 
12* 



274 - . PATEIOTIC ELOQUENCE. 

fetters of a despairing bondage. May God in his infinite 
mercy save you and me, and the land we so much love, from 
the doom of such a degradation. 

N*o contest so momentous as this has arisen in human 
history, for, amid all the conflicts of men and of nations, the 
life of no such government as ours has ever been at stake. 
Our fathers won our independence by the blood and sacrifice 
of a seven years' war, and we have maintained it against 
the assaults of the greatest power upon the earth ; and the 
question now is, whether we are to perish by our own hands, 
and have the epitaph of suicide written upon our tomb. The 
ordeal through which we are passing must involve imrnense 
suflfering and losses for us all, but the expenditure of not 
merely hundreds of millions, but of billions, will be well made, 
if the result shall be the preservation 'of our institutions. 

Could my voice reach every dwelling in Kentucky, I 
would implore its inmates — ^if they would not have the 
rivers of their prosperity shrink away, as do unfed streams 
beneath the summer heats — to rouse themselves from their 
lethargy, and fly to the rescue of their country before it is 
everlastingly too late. Man should appeal to man, and 
neighborhood to neighborhood, until the electric fires of 
patriotism shall flash from heart to heart in one unbroken 
current throughout the land. It is a time in which the 
workshop, the ofiice, the counting-house and the field may 
well be abandoned for the solemn duty that is upon us, for 
all these toils will but bring treasure, hot for ourselves, but 
for the spoiler, if this revolution is not arrested. "We are all, 
with our every earthly interest, embarked in mid-ocean on 
the same common deck. The howl of the storm is in our 
ears, and " the lightning's red glare is painting hell on the 
sky," and while the noble ship pitches and rolls under the 
lashiDgs of the waves, the cry is heard that she has sprung 
a leak at many points, that the rushing waters are mounting 
rapidly in the hold. The man who, at such an hour, will not 
work at the pumps, is either a maniac or a monster. 



KElSmJCKT. 275 



Ex. CLSXSl.— KENTUCKY* 

SOPHIA H. OLITER. 

"The first to join the patriot band, 

The last bright star to fade and die," 
Oh, first-born daughter of the land. 

Wilt thou thy sacred vow deny ? 
By all the lofty memories bright 

That crown with light thy glorious past, 
Oh, speak again those words of might — 

" The first to come, to leave, the last ! " 

The land for which our fathers fought. 

The glorious heritage they gave, 
The just and equal laws they wrought — 

Rise, in thy might, that land to save. 
ITo parricidal daughter thou, 

Ko stain be on thy fealty cast. 
Be faithful to thy boast and vow — 

" The first to come, to leave, the last ! " 

And, land of high, unsullied fame. 

Hast thou no grievous wrongs to right ? 
Thy hero, wrapped in Sumter's flame. 

And conquered in unequal fight ! 
Thy banner trampled in the dust — 

Hark ! shouts of freemen swell the blast, 
" We will defend our flag ! we raust 

Be first to come, to leave, the last ! " 

Land of my birth ! how dear to me 

Has ever been thy spotless fame ! 
Oh, may I never, never see 

The brand of traitor on thy name ! 
Go — gird thee in thy armor bright ; 

Be faithful to thy glorious past ; 
And in the battle for the right. 

Be first to come, to leave, the last ! 

* The words inscribed on the stone contributed by Kentucky to be placed 
in the Washington Monument, are these: "Kentucky — she was the first 
State to enter the Union after the adoption of the Constitution ; she will be 
the last to leave it." 



276 PATKIOTIC ELOQUENCE. 

Ex. Ql.-K.TXll.— CONSEQUENCES OF SECESSION* 



EDWAED EVERETT. 



" Why should we not," it is asked, " admit the claims of 
the seceding States, acknowledge their independence, and 
put an end at once to the war ? " Why should we not ? I 
answer the question by asking another : " Why should we ? " 
What have we to gain, what to hope, from the pursuit of 
that course ? Peace ? But we were at peace before. Why 
are we not at peace now ? The North did not begin the 
war, it has been forced upon us in self-defence; and if, 
while they had the Constitution and the Laws, the Execu- 
tive, Congress, and the Courts all controlled by themselves, 
the South, dissatisfied with legal protections and Constitu- 
tional remedies, has grasped the sword, can North and South 
hope to live in peace when the bonds of Union are broken, 
and amicable means of adjustment are repudiated ? Peace 
is the very last thing which Secession, if recognized, will 
give us ; it will give us nothing but a hollow truce, — time to 
prepare the means of new outrages. It is in its very nature 
a perpetual cause of hostility ; an eternal, never-cancelled 
letter of marque and reprisal, an everlasting proclamation of 
border-war. How can peace exist, when all the causes of 
dissension shall be indefinitely multiplied; when unequal 
revenue laws shall have led to a gigantic system of smug- 
gling ; when a general stampede of slaves shall take place 
along the border, with no thought of rendition, and all the 
thousand causes of mutual irritation shall be called into ac- 
tion, on a frontier of fifteen hundred miles not marked by 
natural boundaries and not subject to a common jurisdiction 
or a mediating power? We did believe in peace, fondly, 
credulously, believed that, cemented by the mild umpirage 
of the Federal Union, it might dwell forever beneath the 
folds of the star-spangled banner, and the sacred shield of a 
common nationality. That was the great arcanum of poli- 
cy ; that was the State mystery into which men and angels 
desired to look ; hidden from ages, but revealed to us : — 

* This, and the two followmg extracts, are taken from Mr. Everett's ad- 
dress delivered at the Academy of Music, in New York, July 4th, 1861. As 
a whole, the address is a most masterly and logical statement of the origin 
and tendency of the Kebellion, and is equally valuable for its close reasoning 
and the polished elegance of its style. 



THE MASSACHUSETTS VOLITNTEEKS. 277 

Which Kings and Prophets waited for, 
And sought, but never found : 

a family of States independent of each other for local con- 
cerns, united under one government for the management of 
common interests and the prevention of internal feuds. There 
was no limit to the possible extension of such a system. It 
had already comprehended half of North America, and it 
might, in the course of time, have folded the continent in its 
peaceful, beneficent embrace. We fondly dreamed that, in 
the lapse of ages, it would have extended till half the West- 
ern hemisphere had realized the vision of universal, perpetu- 
al peace. From that dream we have been rudely startled by 
the array of ten thousand armed men in Charleston Harbor, 
and the glare of eleven batteries bursting on the torn sky of 
the Union, like the comet which, at this very moment, burns 
" in the Arctic sky, and from his horrid hair shakes pestilence 
and war." These batteries rained their storm of iron hail on 
one poor siege-worn company, because, in obedience to law- 
ful authority, in the performance of sworn duty, the gallant 
Anderson resolved to keep his oath. Are no rights sacred 
but those of rebellion ; no oaths binding but those taken by 
men already forsAvorn ; are liberty of thought, and speech, 
and action nowhere to be tolerated except on the pai't of 
those by whom the laws are trampled under foot, arsenals 
and mints plundered, governments warred against, and their 
patriotic defenders assailed by ferocious and murderous mobs ? 



Ex. CLXXXIII.— 7!£r^ MASSACHUSETTS VOLUNTEERS, 

W. S. NEWELL. 

To the sound of martial music. 

And the war-drum's measured beat, 

The sons of Massachusetts 
File along the crowded street ; 

And a look of solemn meaning 
Is on every face I meet. 

And I see on every feature 
The marks of honest toil ; 



278 PATBIOTIC ELOQUENCE. 

The giant from the smithy, 

And the tiller of the soil, 
Who have left the quiet hearth-stone 

For the thunders of the broil. 

And their nerves are knit by labor 
At the furnace and the flume ; 

At the turning of the furrow. 
At the anvil and the loom, 

'Mid the crash of whirling axles 
And the mill-wheel's sullen boom. 

It was thus when Britain's tyrant, 

In the folly of his wrath. 
Coming with his high-born prowess, 

Like the mighty man of Gath, 
Found the simple son of nature 

Was the lion in his path. 

Even so the heights of Bunker, 
Like the field where David stood. 

Unto us have taught a lesson 
That the hand of toil is good ; 

And the nerves of work are better 
Than the nerves of birth and blood. 

And I feel it as they pass me, 
These swarthy sons of might, — 

These men of iron purpose 
To do battle for the right, — 

That the hands which swung the hammer 
Will be dreadful in the fight. 

And I know that God is with them. 
When, reposing in his grace. 

They shall lift the scale of Justice 
To its long-deserted place. 

And proclaim the law of Heaven — 
The Democracy of Race. 



SECESSION OF LOUISIANA. 279 



Ex. CLXXXrV. —MAECEma ON. 

GEORGE W. BUNGAY. 

The day our fathers waited for is dawning on ns now ; 
I see the mantle falling on the prophet at the plough ; 
I hear the trumpet ringing where the victors strike the blow — 
Our men are marching on. 

^bTiagara shouts the chorus of the rivers to the sea, 
Each wave swells like the bosom that is panting to be free. 
The stars are lit in heaven for the nation's jubilee — 
Our men are marching on. 

Sweet promises are written on the soft leaves of the flowers, 
The birds of spring are jubilant within their leafy towers ; 
A rainbow has been woven in the shuttles of the showers — 
Our men are marching on. 

God bless our gallant President, and grant him length of 

days; 
Let all the people crown him with fame's unfading lays, 
And generations yet unborn perpetuate his praise — 
Our men are marchinoj on. 



Ex. QhlXXY.— SECESSION OF LOUISIANA CONSIDERED. 

EDWARD EVERETT. 

Kapoleon, in the vast recesses of his Titanic^ ambition, 
had cherished as a leading object of his policy the acquisi- 
tion for France of a colonial empire which should balance 
that of England. In pursuit of this policy, he tempted Spain, 
by the paltry bribe of creating a kingdom of Etruria for a 
Bourbon prince, to give back to France the then boundless 
waste of the territory of Louisiana. If successful, this pro- 
ject would have established the French power on the mouth 
and on the right bank of the Mississippi, and would have 
opposed th,e most formidable barrier to the expansion of the 
United States. But in another moment the aspect of affairs 
was changed, by a stroke of policy grand, unexpected, and 



280 PATEIOTIC ELOQUENCE. 

fruitful of consequences, perhaps without a parallel in histo- 
ry. The renewal of war was inevitable, and Napoleon saw 
that before he could take possession of Louisiana it would 
be wrested from him by England, who commanded the seas, 
and he determined at once not merely to deprive her of this 
magnificent conquest, but to contribute, as far as in him lay, 
to build up a great rival maritime power in the West. The 
Government of the United States, not less sagacious, seized 
the golden moment — a moment such as does not happen 
twice in a thousand years. Mr. Jefferson perceived that, un- 
less acquired by the United States, Louisiana would in a 
short 'time belong to France or England, and with equal wis- 
dom and courage he determined that it should belong to 
neither, contemplating, however, at that time, only the acqui- 
sition of New Orleans and the adjacent territory. 

But he was dealing with a man that did nothing by 
halves. Napoleon knew — and we knew — that to give up the 
mouth of the river was to give up its course. To the aston- 
ishment of the American envoys, they were told that he was 
prepared to treat with them not merely for the isle of New 
Orleans, but for the whole vast province which bore the 
name of Louisiana ; whose boundaries, then unsettled, have 
since been carried on the North to the British line, on the 
West to the Pacific Ocean ; a territory half as big as Europe, 
transferred by a stroke of the pen. Fifty-eight years have 
elapsed since the acquisition was made. The States of Lou- 
isiana, Arkansas, Missouri, Iowa, Minnesota, and Kansas, 
the territories of Nebraska, Dacotah, Jefferson, and part of 
Colorado, have been established within its limits, on this side 
of the Rocky Mountains ; the State of Oregon and the Ter- 
ritory of Washington on their western slope ; while a tide 
of population is steadily pouring into the region, destined, 
in addition to the natural increase, before the close of the 
century, to double the number of the States and Territories. 
For the entire region west of the Alleghanies and east of the 
Rocky Mountains, the Missouri and the Mississippi form the 
natural outlet to the sea. Without counting the population 
of the seceding States, there are ten millions of the free citi- 
zens of the country, between Pittsburg and Fort Union, who 
claim the course and the mouth of the Mississippi as belong- 
ing to the United States. It is theirs by a transfer of truly 
imperial origin and magnitude; theirs by a sixty years' un- 
disputed title ; theirs by occupation and settlement ; theirs 
by the law of nature and of God. Louisiana, a fragment of 



SWOED AND PLOUGH. 281 

this colonial empire, detached from its main portion and first 
organized as a State, undertakes to secede from the Union, 
and thinks that by so doing she will be allowed by the gov- 
ernment and people of the United States to revoke this im- 
perial transfer, to disregard this possession and occupation 
of sixty years, to repeal this law of nature and of God; and 
she fondly believes that ten millions of the free people of the 
Union will allow her and her seceding brethren to open and 
shut the portals of this mighty region at her pleasure. They 
may do so, and the swarming millions which throng the 
course of these noble streams and their tributaries may con- 
sent to exchange the charter which they hold from the God 
of Heaven for a bit of parchment signed at Montgomery or 
Richmond ; but if I may repeat the words which I have late- 
ly used on another occasion, it will be when the AUeghanies 
and the Rocky Mountains, which form the eastern and west- 
ern walls of the imperial valley, shall sink to the level of 
the sea, and the Mississippi and the Missouri shall flow back 
to their fountains. 



Ex. CLXXXVL— /SlFOi^D AND PLOUGH. 

CHARLES DAWSON SHANLET. 

The Sword came down to the red-brown field. 

When the Plough to the furrow heaved and keeled ; 

And it looked so proud in its jingling gear, — 

Said the Plough to the Sword, " What brings you here?" 

Said the Sword, " Long ago, ere I was born, 

They doubled my grandsire up, one morn. 

To forge a share for you ; and now 

They want him back," said the Sword to the Plough. 

The red-brown field glowed a deeper red. 

As the gleam of war o'er the landscape sped ; 

The sabres flashed, the cannon roared, 

And side by side fought the Plough and the Sword. 



2|82 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE. 



Ex. CLXXXVIL— T£r^ SOUTHERN CONFEDERACY, IF RECOG- 
NIZED, BECOMES A FOREIGN POWER, 

EDWARD EVERETT. 

Consider the monstrous nature and reacli of the preten- 
/sions in which we are expected to acquiesce; which are 
nothing less than that the United States should allow a 
foreign poioer^ by surprise, treachery and violence, to pos- 
sess itself of one half of their territory and all the public 
property and public establishments contained in it ; for if 
the Southern Confederacy is recognized it becomes a foreign 
power, established along a curiously dove-tailed frontier of 
1,500 miles, commanding some of the most important com- 
mercial and military positions and lines of communication 
for travel and trade ; half the sea-coast of the Union ; the 
navigation of the Gulf of Mexico, and, above all, the great 
arterial inlet into the heart of the continent, through which 
its very lifeblood pours its imperial tides. 

I say we are coolly summoned to surrender all this to a 
foreign power. Would we surrender it to England, to 
France, to Spain ? ISTot an inch of it ; why, then, to the 
Southern Confederacy ? Would any other government on 
earth, unless compelled by the dii-est necessity, make such a 
surrender? Does not France keep an army of 100,000 men 
in Algeria to prevent a few wandering tribes of Arabs, a re- 
cent conquest, from asserting their independence ? Did not 
England strain her resources to the utmost tension to prevent 
the native kingdoms of Central India, (civilized states two 
thousand years ago, while painted chieftains ruled the savage 
clans of ancient Britain,) from re-establishing their sover- 
eignty? and shall we be expected, without a struggle, to 
abandon a great integral part of the United States to a 
foreign power? 

Let it be remembered, too, that in granting to the sece- 
ding States, jointly and severally, the right to leave the 
Union, we concede to them the right of resuming, if they 
please, their former allegiance to England, France and Spain. 
It rests with them, with any one of them, if the right of se- 
cession is admitted, again to plant a European government 
side by side with that of the United States on the soil of 
America ; and it is by no means the most improbable upshot 
of this ill-starred rebellion, if allowed to prosper. Whether 
they desire it or not, the moment the seceders lose the pro- 



THE WHOLE STORY TOLD IN RHYME. 283 

tection of the United States they hold their independence at 
the mercy of the powerful governments of Europe. If the 
navy of the North should withdraw its protection, there is 
not a Southern State on the Atlantic or the Gulf, which 
might not be recolonized by Europe in six months after the 
outbreak of a foreign war. 

Such, fellow-citizens, as I contemplate them, are the great 
issues before the country ; nothing less, in a word, than 
whether the work of our noble fathers of the Revolutionary 
and Constitutional age shall perish or endure ; whether this 
great experiment in national polity, which binds a family of 
free Republics in one united government — the most hopeful 
plan for combining the homebred blessings of a small state 
with the stability and power of a great empire — shall be 
treacherously and shamefully stricken down in the moment 
of its most successful operation, or whether it shall be brave- 
ly, patriotically, triumphantly maintained. We wage no 
war of conquest and subjugation ; we aim at nothing but 
to protect our loyal fellow-citizens, who, against fearful odds, 
are fighting the battles of the Union in the disaffected States, 
and to re-establish, not for ourselves alone, but for our de- 
luded fellow countrymen, the mild sway of the Constitution 
and the laws. The result can not be doubted. Twenty mil- 
lions of freemen, forgetting their divisions, are rallying as 
one man in support of the righteous cause — their willing 
hearts and their strong hands — their fortunes and their 
lives, are laid upon the altar of the country. We contend 
for the great inheritance of constitutional freedom transmit- 
ted from our Revolutionary fathers. We engage in the 
struggle forced upon us with sorrow, as against our mis- 
guided brethren, but with high heart and faith, as we war 
for that Union which our Washington commended to our 
dearest affections. The sympathy of the civilized world is 
on our side, and will join us in prayers to Heaven for the 
success of our arms. 



Ex. CLXXXVIIL— r^^ WHOLE STORY TOLD IN RHYME. 

John Bull he met our Jonathan ; 

"Ah! Jonathan," said he, sir, 
" Pray tell me now, what's all this row 

I hear across the sea, sir ? 



284 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE. 

You're kicking lip a pretty fuss, 
Pray tell me what it's for, sir ; 

Let me advise— just compromise ! 
A horrid thing is war, sir. 

" I shall want cotton, Jonathan, 

Likewise Virginia's weed, sir ; 
And really, now, I can't allow 

This quarrel to proceed, sir." 
" Do tell ! " said Brother Jonathan ; 

" Now don't you get excited ; 
At home I rule — so just keep cool ; 

You'll see this thing all righted. 

" My Southern boys for years have held, 

The Presidential rein, sir ; 
Until to-day, they've held a sway 

They never can regain, sir.' 
And when they can not rule, they kick, 

And hate with all their might, sir ; 
For love of Union's second to 

Their fondness for State rights, sir. 

" We only ask them to obey 

The same laws that we do, sir. 
Their fathers helped our own to make — 

They were good men and true, sir. 
We ask no more, we'll take no less. 

Though every single drop, sir. 
Of Northern blood the land shall flood ; 

Till then it can not stop, sir. 

" I want but justice, bully John, 

Respect, and all my due, sir ; 
And when I have them, Johnny Bull, 

You shall have cotton too, sir. 
But not till then — that's certain sure ; 

So take the matter easy ; 
And when the war is over, John, 

I'll do my best to please ye." 



HTMN-S. 285 



Ex. CLXXXIX.—^ i^ifF HYMN. 

OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 

O LoED of Hosts ! Almighty King ! 
Behold the sacrifice we bring ! 
To every arm Thy strength impart, 
Thy Spirit shed through every heart ! 

Wake in our breast the living fires, 
The holy faith that warmed our sires ; 
Thy hand hath made our N'ation free ; 
To die for her is serving Thee. 

Be Thou a pillared flame, to show 
The midnight snare, the silent foe.; 
And when the battle thunders loud, 
Still guide us in its moving cloud. 

God of all Nations ! Sovereign Lord ! 
In Thy dread name we draw the sword ; 
We lift the starry flag on high. 
That fills with light our stormy sky. 

From treason's rent, from murder's stain, 
Guard Thou its folds till Peace shall reign ; 
Till fort and field, till shore and sea. 
Join our loud anthem. Praise to Thee ! 



Ex. CXC— ^ WAR HYMN. 



THEODORE TILTON. 

Thou who ordainest, for the land's salvation, 
Famine and fire, and sword and lamentation, 
Now unto Thee we lift our supplication — 
God save the nation ! 

By the great sign, foretold, of thy appearing — 
Coming in clouds, while mortal men stand fearing- 
Show us, amid the smoke of battle clearing 
Thy chariot nearing ! 



286 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE. 

By the brave blood that flowetb like a river, 
Hurl thou a thunderbolt from out thy quiver I 
Break thou the strong gates ! Every fetter shiver 
Smite and deliver ! 

Slay thou our foes, or turn them to derision, 
Till, through the blood-red Valley of Decision, 
Peace on our fields shine, like a prophet's vision, 
Green and Elysian ! 



Ex. CXCI.~ON BOARD THE CUMBERLAND, MARCS 1th, 1-862. 



GEOEGE H. BOKEB. 



" Stand to your guns, men ! " Morris cried. 

Small need to pass the word ; 
Our men at quarters ranged themselves 

Before the drum was heard. 

And then began the sailors' jests : 

"What thing is that, I say ?" 
" A 'long-shore meeting-house adrift 

Is standing down the bay ! " 

A frown came over Morris' face ; 

The strange, dark craft he knew ; 
" That is the iron Merrimac, 

Manned by a rebel crew. 

" So shot your guns, and point them straight ; 

Before this day goes by. 
We'll try of what her metal's made." 

A cheer was the reply. 

Meanwhile the shapeless iron mass 

Came moving o'er the wave. 
As gloomy as a passing hearse, 

As silent as the grave. 

She reached our range. Our broadside rang, 

Our heavy pivots roared ; 
And shot and shell, a fire of hell, 

Against her sides w6 poured. 



ON BOAED THE CUMBERLAND. 287 

God's mercy ! From her sloping roof 

The h'on tempest glanced, 
As hail bounds from a cottage thatch, 

And round her leaped and danced. 

Or when against her dusky hull 

We struck a fair, full blow. 
The mighty, solid, iron globes 

Were crumbled up like snow. 

On, on, with fast increasing speed 

The silent monster came, 
Though all our starboard battery 

Was one long line of flame. 

She heeded not — no gun she fired, 

Straight on our bow she bore ; 
Through riving plank and crashing frame 

Her furious way she tore. 

Once more she backward drew a space, 

Once more our side she rent ; 
Then, in the wantonness of hate. 

Her broadside through us sent. 

We felt our vessel settling fast, 

We knew our time was brief; [pumped, 

" The j)umps ! The pumps ! " But they who 

And fought not, wept with grief. 

From captain dov/n to powder-boy, 

Ko hand was idle then ; 
Two soldiers, but by chance aboard, 

Fought on like sailor-men. 

And when a gun's crew lost a hand. 

Some bold marine stepped out. 
And jerked his braided jacket off, 

And hauled the gun about. 

Our forward magazine was drowned ; 

And up from the sick bay 
Crawled out the wounded, red with blood, 

And round us gasping lay 



288 PATEIOTIC ELOQUENCE. 

Yes, cheering, calling us by name, 
Struggling with failing breath, 

To keep their shipmates at the post 
Where glory strove with death. 

With decks afloat, and powder gone, 

The last broadside we gave 
From the guns' heated iron lips 

Burst out beneath the wave. 

" Up to the spar-deck ! save yourselves ! " 
Cried Selfridge. " Up, my men ! 

God grant that some of us may live 
To fight that ship again ! " 

We turned ; we did not like to go ; 

Yet staying seemed but vain, 
Knee-deep in water ; so we left. 

Some swore, some groaned with pain. 

We reached the deck. There Randall stood ; 

" Another turn, men — So ! " 
Calmly he aimed his pivot-gun : 

"Now, Tenny, let her go ! " 

It did our sore hearts good to hear 

The song our pivot sang, 
As rushing on from wave to wave 

The whirring bomb-shell sprang. 

Brave Randall leaped upon the gun, 

And waved his cap in sport ; 
" Well done ! well aimed ! I saw that shot 

Go through an open port ! " 

It was our last, our deadliest shot ; 

The deck was overflown ; 
The poor ship staggered, lurched to port, 

And gave a living groan. 

Down, down, as headlong through the waves 

Our gallant vessel rushed, 
A thousand gurgling watery sounds 

Around my senses gushed. 



THE VAEUNA. 289 

I tried to cheer. I can not say 

Whether I swam or sank ; 
A blue mist closed around my eyes, 

And every thing was blank. 

When I awoke, a soldier lad, 

All dripping from the sea, 
With two great tears upon His cheeks, 

Was bending over me. 

I tried to speak. He understood 

The wish I could not speak — 
He turned me. There, thank God ! the flag 

Still fluttered at the peak ! 

And there, while thread shall hang to thread, 

Oh, let that ensign fly ! 
The noblest constellation set 

Against our northern sky. 

A sign that we who live, may claim 

The peerage of the brave ; 
A monument, that needs no scroll. 

For those beneath the wave ! 



Ex. CXCIL-^TEU VARUNA. 

Sunk April 25th, 1862. 

GEORGE H. BOKER. 

Who has not heard of the dauntless Yaruna ? 

Who has not heard of the deeds she has done ? 
"Who shall not hear, while the brown Mississippi 

Rushes along from the snow to the sun ? 

Crippled and leaking she entered the battle. 

Sinking and burning she fought through the fray. 

Crushed were her sides, and the waves ran across her. 
Ere, like a death-wounded lion at bay. 

Sternly she closed in the last fatal grapple. 
Then in her triumph moved grandly away, 
13 



590 PATKIOTIC ELOQUENCE. 

Five of the rebels, like satellites round her, 
Burned in her orbit of splendor and fear, 

One, like the pleiad of mystical story, 

Shot, terror-stricken, beyond her dread sphere. 

We who are waiting, with crowns for the victors, 
Though we should offer the wealth of our store, 

Load the Varuna from deck down to keelson. 
Still would be niggard, such tribute to pour 

On courage so boundless. It beggars possession, 
It knocks for just payment at heaven's bright door ! 

Cherish the heroes who fought the Varuna ; 

Treat them as kings if they honor your way ; 
Succor and comfort the sick and the wounded; 

Oh, for the dead let us all kneel to pray ! 



Ex. CTClll.— THANKSGIVING-EVE, 1862. 

Slow across the blue Potomac fades the dim November light. 
And the darkness, like a mantle, folds the tented field from 

sight ; 
Through the shadowed wood beside me breaks the wind 

with quivering moan, 
Floating, sighing, falling, dying, as I hold my watch alone. 

Forward, backward, stern and fearless, till the moonbeam's 

dancing ray 
Breaks in many a gleaming arrow from my bayonet's point 

away ; 
So I pace the picket lonely ; but, apart from mortal sight, 
Watch I'm keeping with the sleeping loved ones far away 

to-night. 

On the morrow comes Thanksgiving, when, from households 

far and wide. 
Round their homes the children gather — seek once more the 

old fireside ; 
Fill once more the vacant places, that they left so long ago, 
Self-relying, proudly trying all life's unknown joy and woe. 



THE PICKET GUAED. 291 

On the morrow comes Thanksgiving, not as long ago it came, 
Bright, vfithout a shade of sorrow lingering on its good old 

name ; 
War has waved his crimson banner, and beneath its blood 

stains rest 
All his glory, dim and gory, laid on many a lifeless breast. 

Wife and child, and aged mother, wake at morn to bend the 

knee, 
And around the hearth-stone glowing, supplicate their God 

for me ; 
'NesiY my vacant chair they gather, blending tears amid their 

prayers — 
God will hear them, and anear them will my spirit kneel 

with theirs. ' 

Nor is darkness all around us ; we can thank our God for 

might — 
For the strength which he has given, still to struggle for the 

right ; 
For the soul so grandly beating in the nation's onward way. 
For the spirit we inherit in this new Thanksgiving day ! 

Still the blue Potomac ripples like a silver thread below, 
And amid the sullen darkness rises high the camp-fire's glow ; 
So I pace the picket lonely, while, apart from mortal sight, 
Watch I'm keeping with the sleeping loved ones there at 
home to-night. 



Ex. CXGIY.—THU PICKET GUARD, 

" All quiet along the Potomac," they say, 

" Except now and then a stray picket 
Is shot, as he walks on his beat, to and fro. 

By a rifleman off in the thicket. 
'Tis nothing — a private or two, now and then, 

Will not count in the news of the battle ; 
Not an officer lost — only one of the men, 

Moaning out, all alone, the death-rattle." 



292 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE. 

All quiet along the Potomac to-night, 

Where the soldiers lie peacefully dreaming ; 
Their tents in the rays of the clear autumn moon, 

Or the light of the watchfires are gleaming. 
A tremulous sigh, as the gentle night-wind 

Through the forest-leaves softly is creeping ; 
While stars up above, with their glittering eyes, 

Keep guard — for the army is sleeping. 

There's only the sound of the lone sentry's tread. 

As he tramps from the rock to the fountain, 
And thinks of the two in the low trundle-bed 

Far away in the cot on the mountain. 
. His musket falls slack — ^his face, dark and grim. 

Grows gentle with memories tender. 
As he mutters a prayer for the children asleep — 

For their mother, — may Heaven defend her ! 

The moon seems to shine just as brightly as then, 

That night, when the love yet unspoken 
Leaped up to his lips—when low-murmured vows 

Were pledged to be ever unbroken. 
Then drawing his sleeve roughly over his eyes. 

He dashes off tears that are welling. 
And gathers his gun closer up to its place 

As if to keep down the heart-swelling. 

He passes the fountain, the blasted pine-tree — 

The footstep is lagging and weary ; 
Yet onward he goes, through the broad belt of light, 

Toward the shades of the forest so dreary. 
Hark ! was it night-wind that rustled the leaves ? 

Was it moonlight so wondrously flashing ? ^ 
It looked like a rifle — " Ah ! Mary, good by ! " 

And the life-blood is ebbing and plashing. 

All quiet along the Potomac to-night, 
No sound save the rush of the river ; 

While soft falls the dew on the face of the dead — 
The picket's off duty forever. 



ALL FOE OTJE COUNTET. 293 



Ex. CXCY.—jyO PARTY NOW— ALL FOR OUR COUNTRY. 

From an Address read at the Inaugural Meeting of the Loyal National League, in 
Union Square, New York, on the llth of April, 1863. 

PKANCIS LIEBER. 

It is just and wise that men engaged in a great and ar- 
duous cause should profess anew, from time to time, their 
faith, and pledge themselves to one another, to stand by 
their cause to the last extremity, even at the sacrifice of all 
they have and all that God has given them — their wealth, 
their blood, and their children's blood. We solemnly pledge 
all this to our cause, for it is the cause of our country and 
her noble history, of freedom, and justice, and truth — it is 
the cause of all we hold dearest on this earth : we profess 
and pledge this — plainly, broadly, openly in the cheering 
time of success, and most fervently in the day of trial and 
reverses. 

We recollect how, two years ago, when reckless arro- 
gance attacked Fort Sumter, the response to that boom of 
treasonable cannon was read, in our city, in the flag of our 
country—waving from every steeple and school-house, from 
City Hall and Court House, from every shop window and 
market stall, and fluttering in the hand of every child, and 
on the head-gear of every horse in the busy street. Two 
years have passed ; uncounted sacrifices have been made- — 
sacrifices of wealth, of blood, and limb, and life — of friend- 
ship and brotherhood, of endeared and hallowed pursuits and 
sacred ties — and still the civil war is raging in bitterness and 
heart-burning — still we make the same profession, and still 
we pledge ourselves firmly to hold on to our cause, and perse- 
vere in the struggle into which unrighteous men, bewildered 
by pride, and stimulated by bitter hatred, have plunged us. 

We profess ourselves to be loyal citizens of these United 
States; and by loyalty we mean a candid and loving devo- 
tion to the object to which a loyal man — a loyal husband, a 
loyal friend, a loyal citizen — devotes himself. We eschew 
the attenuated arguments derived by trifling scholars from 
meagre etymology. We take the core and substance of this 
weighty word, and pledge ourselves that we will loyally — 
not merely outwardly and formally, according to the letter, 
but frankly, fervently and according to the spirit — adhere to 
our country, to her institutions, to freedom, and her power, 



294 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE. 

and to that^reat institution called the government of our 
country, founded by our fathers, and loved by their sons, 
and by all right-minded men, who have become citizens of 
this land by choice and not by birth — who have wedded 
this country in the maturity of their age as verily their own. 
We pledge ourselves as National men devoted to the Na- 
tionality of this great people. No government can wholly 
dispense with loyalty, except the fiercest despotism ruling by 
naked intimidation ; but a republic stands in greater need of 
it than any other government, and most of all a republic 
beset by open rebellion and insidious treason. Loyalty is 
pre-eminently a civic virtue in a free country. It is patriot- 
ism cast in the graceful mould of candid devotion to the 
harmless government of an unshackled nation. 

In pledging ourselves thus, we know of no party. Parties 
are unavoidable in free countries, and may be useful if they 
acknowledge the country far above themselves, and remain 
within the sanctity of the fundamental law which protects the 
enjoyment of liberty prepared for, all within its sacred do- 
main. But Party has no meaning in far the greater number 
of the highest and the common relations of human life. 
When we are ailing, we do not take medicine by party pre- 
scription. We do not build ships by party measurement; 
we do not pray for our daily bread by party distinctions ; 
we do not take our chosen ones to our bosoms by party 
demarcations, nor do we eat or drink, sleep or wake, as par- 
tisans. We do -not enjoy the flowers of spring, nor do we 
harvest the grain, by party lines. We do not incur punish- 
ments for infractions of the commandments according to 
party creeds. We do not pursue truth, or cultivate science, 
by party dogmas ; and we do not, we must not, love and 
defend our country and our liberty, dear to us as part and 
portion of our very selves, according to party rules. Woe 
to him who does. When a house is on fire, and a mother 
with her child cries for help at the window above, shall the 
firemen at the engine be allowed to trifle away the precious 
time in party bickerings, or is then the only word — " Water ! 
pump away ; up with the ladder ! " 

Let us not be like the Byzantines, those wretches who 
quarrelled about contemptible party refinements, theological 
though they were, while the truculent Mussulman was 
steadily drawing nearer — nay, some of whom would even go 
to the lord of the crescent, and. with a craven heart would 
beg for a pittance of the spoil, so that they would be spared, 



THE FULFILMENT OF DESTINY. 295 

and could vent their party spleen against their kin in blood, 
and fellows in religion. 

We know of no party in our present troubles ; the word 
is here an empty sound. The only line which divides the 
people of the North, runs between the mass of loyal men 
who stand by their country, no matter to what place of 
political meeting they were used to resort, or with what 
accent they utter the language of the land, or what religion 
they profess, or what sentiments they may have uttered in 
the excitement of former discussions, on the one hand, and 
those on the other hand, who keep outside of that line — 
traitors to their country in the hour of need, — or those who 
allow themselves to be misled by shallow names, and by rem- 
iniscences which cling around those names from by-gone 
days, finding no application in a time which asks for things 
more sterling than names, theories, or platforms. 



Ex. CXCYl.—TffjE FULFILMENT OF DESTINY, 

speech delivered in New York, April llth, 1863. 

ROSCOE CONKLING. 

It seems to be a maxim in the economy of Providence, 
that the trials of a nation are in the ratio of its destinies. 
If it be poor and powerless, — if it have no empire and hold 
no position envied by the world, — it may escape the blasts 
of war, and languish for long intervals in unmolested calm- 
ness. But if it be rich and powerful, if it claim as its own 
one-tenth of the globe, if in the lifetime of a single man it 
grow to be the foremost power in all the earth, — it must ac- 
cept perils and struggles as the price of its greatness and 
success. 

K, besides being powerful, a people have set up institu- 
tions in which no trace of aristocracy is tolerated, it has vol- 
untarily elected to make its own soil the theatre of a contest 
which has been waging since time began between oppression 
and liberty. It is the mission and fore-ordained destiny of 
a people assuming to found and uphold a democratic gov- 
ernment, to wrestle and grapple with the foes of Freedom 
within and without ; and we had no right to expect to es- 
cape it. 



296 PATKIOTIC ELOQUENCE. 

Why sliould we ? Why should we hope to elude the 
evil passions and instincts which have led men the world 
over to seek the destruction of equal rights and the aggran- 
dizement of the few at the expense of the many. We knew 
th'at nowhere had men relinquished superior and exclusive 
privileges without a contest. Why should they do it here 
— ^here in the New World, the place reserved for republican 
government to vindicate itself forever, or to wither from the 
world ? 

Time and civilization and government had their morning 
not in the West but in the East. Dawn flushed, and yet 
centuries rolled by before light broke upon the Western 
Continent. Why was this ? Why was half the globe kept 
hidden away behind a trackless waste of waters till the other 
half had been dug over and over to bury its dead ? Why 
were progress and barbarism mewed up so long in the Old 
World, to solve in blood the problems of humanity ? 

Perhaps the New World was reserved till mankind should 
be fitted for a higher and better dispensation. Perhaps it 
was designed to withhold this inheritance from man until 
the race had been tried and instructed and exalted by the 
wisdom and the folly, the virtues and the vices, of wasted 
ages. 

If this was the design, we can understand our mission 
and accept our responsibilities. If it is the mission of the 
American people to make their continent a garden for the 
growth of a new civilization, higher and better and truer 
than the world has ever known, Ave may understand the logic 
which permits blood to stain our land. If we maintain suc- 
cessfully that man needs no mortal master but himself, we 
bring forth a great new truth, and no great truth was ever 
yet born into the world without great pangs. 

It cost great pangs to plant the germ of free government 
here, and the manner in which the experiment began might 
well convince the mind of faith that Providence had charge 
over it. The task was undertaken by a group of men whom 
no previous age could have produced. They were the vic- 
tims of all the bad systems of government then extant, and 
they were called to devise a new system just when the world 
was ablaze with political intelligence. All the past was be- 
fore them, and the French Revolution was just delivering its 
terrible message to mankind. Two forms of government 
had already been tried here. The Colonial system had been 
tested and thrown oflf. The Confederate system had been 



THE HEAET OF THE WAR. 297 

fully tried, and found fit to live only through the Revolu- 
tion it supported. The Fathers of the Republic, in their al- 
most inspiration, saw clearly that a government to be endur- 
ing and free must be a Union, not of States but of the 
people, and they fashioned their work accordingly. 

The Constitution, as our fathers made it, is the ark of our 
safety, and " except we abide in the ship we can not be 
saved." Let us cling to the ship which our fathers built 
and launched in darkness and tempests upon the tide of 
time ; let us take heed lest she drift upon the rocks while we 
wrangle among ourselves ; let us feel that our crowning in- 
famy would be to lose the vessel from brawls among the 
crew. Rather than that this should happen, let her go down 
in the shock ; rather let the harpies of Europe pluck the 
eagle of the sea ; rather than pull down her colors ourselves, 

" Nail to the mast her holy flag, 

Stretch every threadbare sail, 
And give her to the god of storms, 

The lightning and the gale." 



Ex. Q^CYIL—THE HEART OF THE WAR. 



DR. J. G. HOLLAND. 



Peace in the clover-scented air, 

And stars within the dome ; 
And underneath, in dim repose, 

A plain, New England home. 
Within, a murmur of low tones 

And sighs from hearts oppressed, 
Merging in prayer, at last, that brings 

The balm of silent rest. 

" I've closed a hard day's work, Marty ,- 

The evening chores are done ; . 
And you are weary with the house, 

And with the little one. 
But he is sleeping sweetly now, 

With all our pretty brood ; 
So come and sit upon my knee, 

And it will do me good. 
13* 



298 PATEIOTIC ELOQUENCE. 

Oh, Marty ! I must tell you all 

The trouble in my heart, 
And you must do the best you can 

To take and bear your part. 
You've seen the shadow on my face, 

You've felt it day and night ; 
For it has filled our little home, 

And banished all its light. 

I did not mean it should be so, 

And yet I might have known 
That hearts that live as close as ours 

Can never keep their own. 
But we are fallen on evil times, 

And, do whate'er I may, ^ 
My heart grows sad about the war, 

And sadder every day. 

I think about it when I work. 

And when I try to rest. 
And never more than when your head 

Is pillowed on my breast ; 
For then I see the camp-fires blaze. 

And sleeping men around, 
Who turn their faces toward their homes. 

And dream upon the ground. 

I think about the dear, brave boys, 

My mates in other years. 
Who pine for home and those they love, 

Till I am choked with tears. 
With shouts and cheers they marched away 

On glory's shining track, 
But, ah ! how long, how long they stay ! 

How few of them come back ! 

One sleeps beside the Tennessee, 

And one beside the James, 
And one fought on a gallant ship 

And perished in its flames. 
And some, struck down by foul disease, 

Are breathing out their life ; 
And others, maimed by cruel wounds, 

Have left the deadly strife. 



THE HEAET OF THE WAB. 299 

Ah, Marty ! Marty ! only think 

Of all the boys have done 
And suffered in this weary war ! 

Brave heroes, every one ! 
Oh, often, often in the night, 

I hear their voices call : 
* Come on and help us ! Is it right 

That we should bear it all f ' 

And when I kneel and try to pray, 

My thoughts are never free, 
Bat cling to those who toil and fight 

And die for you and me. 
And when I pray for victory, 

It seems almost a sin 
To fold my hands and ask for what 

I will not help to win. 

Oh ! do not cling to me and cry, 

For it will break my heart ; 
I'm sure you'd rather have me die 

Than not to bear my part. 
You think that some should stay at home 

To care for those away ; 
But still I'm helpless to decide 

If I should go or stay. 

For, Marty, all the soldiers love. 

And all'are loved again ; 
And I am loved, and love, perhaps 

No more than other men. 
I can not tell — I do not know — 

Which way my duty lies, 
Or where the Lord would have me build 

My fire of sacrifice. 

I feel — ^I know — ^I am not mean ; 

And though I seem to boast, 
I'm sure that I would give my life 

To those who need it most. 
Perhaps the Spirit will reveal 

That which is fair and right ; 
So, Marty, let us humbly kneel 

And pray to Heaven for light." 



SOO PATEIOTIC ELOQUENCE. 

Peace in the clover-scented air, 

And stars within the dome; 
And underneath, in dim repose, 

A plain, New England home. 
Within, a widow in her weeds, 

From whom all joy is flown. 
Who kneels among her sleeping babes, 

And weeps and prays alone ! 



Ex. CXCYHL—ADDEFSS AT THE CONSECRATION OF THE 
SOLDIERS CEMETERY, AT GETTYSBURG, NOVEM- 
BER, 1863. -^ 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 



FoTJESCOEE and seven years ago, our fathers brought 
forth upon this continent a new nation, conceived in Liberty, 
and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created 
equal. N"ow we are engaged in a great civil war, testing 
whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so ded- 
icated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field 
of that war. We are met to dedicate a portion of it as the 
final resting-place of those who here gave their lives that the 
nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that 
we should do this. 

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate, we can not con- 
secrate, we can not hallow this ground. The brave men, liv- 
ing and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it far 
above our power to add or detract. The world will little 
note, nor long remember, what we say here; but it can 
never forget what they did here. It is for us, the living, 
rather to be dedicated here to the unfinished work that they 
have thus far so nobly carried on. It is rather for us to be 
here dedicated to the great task remaining before us,-— that 
from these honored dead we take increased devotion to the 
cause for which they here gave the last full measure of devo- 
tion ; that we here highly resolve that the dead shall not 
have died in vain ; that the nation shall, under God, have a 
new birth of freedom ; and that the government of the 
people, by the people, and for the people, shall not perish 
from the earth. 



DIEGE FOR A SOLDIEE. 301 



Ex. CXGIX.— DIRGE FOE A SOLDIER. 

GEORGE H. BOKER. 

Close his eyes, his work is done ! 

What to him is friend or foeman, 
Rise of moon, or set of sun. 

Hand of man, or M§s of woman ? 
Lay him low, lay him low, 
In the clover or the snow ! 
What cares he ? he can not know. 
Lay him low ! 

As man may, he fought his fight, 

Proved his truth by his endeavor ; 
Let him sleep in solemn night. 
Sleep forever and forever. 
Lay him low, lay him low, 
In the clover or the snow ! 
What cares he ? he can not know ! 
Lay him low ! 

Fold him in his country's stars, 

Roll the drum and fire the volley ! 
What to him are all our wars. 

What but death bemocking folly ! 
Lay him low, lay him low, 
In the clover or the snow. 
What cares he ? he can not know ! 
Lay him low ! 

Leave him to God's watching eye. 

Trust him to the hand that made him ; 
Mortal love weeps idly by ; 

God alone has power to aid him. 
Lay him low, lay him low, 
In the clover or the snow ! 
What cares he ? he can not know ! 
Lay him low ! 



302 PATETOTIC ELOQUENCE. 



"E^x. CC— AFTER THE BATTLE. 

The drums are all muffled, the bugles are still ; 
There's a pause in the valley, a halt on the hill; 
And bearers of standards swerve back with a thrill 

Where sheaves of the dead bar the way ; 
For a great field is reaped, Heaven's garners to fill, 

And stern Death holds his harvest to-day. 

There's a voice in the wind like a spirit's low cry ; 
'Tis the muster-roll sounding, — and who shall reply 
For those whose wan faces glare white to the sky, 

With eyes fixed so steadfast and dimly, 
As they wait the last trump, which they may not defy ! 

Whose hands clutch the sword-hilt so grimly. 

The brave heads late lifted are solemnly bowed. 

As the riderless chargers stand quivering and cowed, — 

As the burial requiem is chanted aloud. 

The groans of the death-stricken drowning. 
While Victory looks on like a queen pale and proud 

Who awaits till the morning her crowning. 

There is no mocking blazon, as clay sinks to clay ; 
The vain pomps of peace-time are all swept away 
In the terrible face of the dread battle-day ; 

ISTor coffins nor shroudings are here ; 
Only relics that lay where thickest the fray, — 

A rent casque and a headless spear. 

Far away, tramp on tramp, sounds the march of the foe, 
Like a storm-wave retreating, spent, fitful and slow ; 
With sound like their spirits that faint as they go 

By the red-glowing river, whose waters 
Shall darken with sorrow the land where they flow 

To the eyes of her desolate daughters. 

They are fled — they are gone ; but oh ! not as they came ; 
In the pride of those numbers they staked on the game, 
Never more shall they stand in the vanguard of fame, 

Never lift the stained sword which they di%w ; 
Never more shall they boast of a glorious name, 

Never march with the leal and the true. 



A THANKSGIVING HYMN. 303 

Where the wreck of our legions lay stranded and torn, 
They stole on our ranks in the mist of the morn ; 
Like the giant of Gaza, their strength it was shorn 

Ere those mists have rolled up to the sky ; 
From the flash of the steel a new day-break seemed born, 

As we sprang up to conquer or die. 

The tumult is silenced ; the death-lots are cast, 
And the heroes of battle are slumbering their last : 
Do you dream of yon pale form that rode on the blast ? 

Would ye see it once more, oh ye brave ! 
Yes- — the broad road to honor is red where ye passed, 

And of glory ye asked — but a grave ! 



Ex. CCI.— ^ THANKSGIVING HYMN. 



PAKK BENJAMIN. 

Oh, God of Battles ! by whose hand, 

Uplifted to protect the right, 
Are led the armies of our land 

To be triumphant in the fight ; 

Without whose smile, the solemn night 
Which now in shadow veils the sky 

Would never yield to morning light, 
Bend down, and hear thy people's cry. 

Bend from thy heaven of heavens, and see 
A nation which had grown so great 

That, drawing off their heart from TJiee, 
They worshipped fortune, fame and fate, 
And called upon thy name too late. 

Thy righteous anger we deplore ; 

Oh, look upon their hapless state 

And be our sure defence once more. 

Be thou, who wast our father's God, 

Our own reliance, strength and stay ; 

And let the sacred path they trod 

Still be their children's chosen way, 



S04 PATEIOTIC ELOQUENCE. 

Illumined by that glorious ray 
Which guided through the desert drear, 

A fire at night, a cloud by day, 
For many a sad, despairing year. 

Oh thou, whose smiling face appears 
At last, behind war's awful frown ; 

The tribute of our grateful tears, 

Like rain in Summer falling down, 
Accept, and let thy mercy crown 

This contest, holy in thy sight ; 
^ And thine be all the vast renown, 

And ours the victory of Right. 



Ex. ecu.—/ HAVE A COUNTRY. 

«« I have a country," cried a boy, starting up. " My father is fighting for it, and 
my brother has died for it." 

I HAVE a country ! who with coward tongue 
And treacherous heart has said it is not so ? 

I have a country, and her flag is flung, 

Starry and bright on all the winds that blow. 

I have a country ! From the shores of Maine, 
^ Stormy and bleak, to the Pacific sea ; 
The granite mountains and the fertile plains, 
The mighty rivers, all belong to me. 

To me alike, the sturdy northern pines 

Which toss their branches in the winds forlorn. 

The feathery palm trees and the clustering vines. 
The fields of cotton and the groves of corn. 

I have a country, for the brave have died 
Upon a thousand fields to make them free ; 

The land is mine, their blood has sanctified — 

Mine, North and South, and mine from sea to sea. 

And 'neath her banner still the battles rage, 
And armies wrestle in the cannon's breath ; 



SECOND INAFGURAL ADDRESS OP PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 305 

For here is waged the conflict of the age, 
Freedom and slavery grappling unto death. 

G^d help my country in this hour of woe, 

And save her, though baptized in fire and blood ; 

With thy right arm hurl back the haughty foe, 
'Not suiFer evil to destroy the good. 



Ex, CCm.—SIJCONI) INAUGURAL ADDRESS OF PRESIDENT 
LINCOLN, MARCH 4, 1865. 

Fellow-countrymen : At this second appearing to take 
the oath of the Presidential office, there is less occasion for 
an extended address than there was at the first. Then, a 
statement somewhat in detail of a course to be pursued 
seemed very fitting and proper. ISTow, at the expiration of 
four years, during which public declarations have constantly 
been called forth on every point and phase of the great con- 
test which still absorbs the attention and engrosses the ener- 
gies of the nation, little that is new could be presented. 

The progress of our arms, upon which all else chiefly de- 
pends, is as well known to the public as to myself; and it is, 
I trust, reasonably satisfactory and encouraging to all. With 
high hope for the future, no prediction in regard to it is ven- 
tured. On the occasion corresponding to-this, four years ago, 
all thoughts were anxiously directed to an impending civil 
war. All dreaded it, all sought to avoid it. While the in- 
augural address was being delivered from this place, devoted 
altogether to saving the Union without war, insurgent agents 
were in the city, seeking to destroy it without war ; seeking 
to dissolve the IJnion and divide the efiects by negotiation. 

Both parties deprecated war ; but one of them would 
make war rather than let the nation survive, and the other 
would accept war rather than let it perish : and the war 
came. 

One-eighth of the whole population v/ere colored slaves, 
not distributed generally over the Union, but located in the 
southern part of it. These slaves constituted a peculiar and 
powerful interest. All knew that this interest vras somehow 
the cause of the war. To strengthen, perpetuate and extend 
this interest, Avas the object for which the insurgents would 



306 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE. 

rend this Union by war, while government claimed no right 
to do more than to restrict the territorial enlargement of it. 
Neither party expected the magnitude nor the duration 
which it has already attained. Neither anticipated that the 
cause of the conflict might cease, even before the conflict it- 
self should cease. Each looked for an easier triumph, and a 
result less fundamental and astonishing. Both read the same 
Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes his aid 
against the other. It may seem strange that any man should 
dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing his bread from 
the sweat of other men's faces. But let us judge not, that 
we be not judged. The prayer of both should not be an- 
swered. That of neither has been answered fully. The Al- 
mighty has his own purposes. " Woe unto the world be- 
cause of oflences, for it must needs be that offences come ; 
but woe to that man by whom the offence cometh." If we 
shall suppose that American slavery is one of these offences, 
which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but 
which, having continued through his appointed time, he now 
wills to remove, and that he gives to both North and South 
this terrible war as the woe due to those by whom the of- 
fence came, shall we discern therein any departure from those 
divine attributes which the believers in a living God always 
ascribe to him ? 

Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this 
mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet if 
God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the 
bondman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil 
shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the 
lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword; as was 
said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said that 
the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether. 

With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firm- 
ness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us 
strive on to finish the work we are in ; to bind up the nation's 
wounds ; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, 
and for his widow and his orphans ; to do all which may 
achieve and cherish a just and a lasting peace among our- 
selves, and with all nations. 



EESTOEATION OF THE FLAG TO FOET SUMTEE. 307 

Ex. CGW.— RESTORATION OF THE FLAG TO FORT SUMTER, 
APRIL 14, 1865. 

HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

Ok this solemn and joyful day we again lift to the breeze 
our fathers' flag, now again the banner of the United States, 
with the fervent prayer that God will crown it "^ith honor, 
protect it from treason, and send it down to our children 
with all the blessings of civilization, liberty and religion. 
Terrible in battle, may it be beneficent in peace ! Happily, 
no bird or beast of. prey has been inscribed uj^on it. The 
stars that redeem the night from darkness, and the beams of 
red light that beautify the morning, have been inscribed upon 
its folds. As long as the sun endures, or the stars, may it 
wave over a union neither enslaved nor enslaving ! 

We raise our fathers' banner that it may bring back bet- 
ter blessings than those of the old ; that it may cast out the 
devil of discord ; that it may restore lawful government, and 
a prosperity purer and more enduring than that which it 
protected before ; that it may win parted friends from their 
.alienation; that it may inspire hope and inaugurate univer- 
sal liberty ; that it may say to the sword, " JReturn to thy 
sheath^'' and to the plough and sickle, " Go forth y " that it 
may heal all jealousies, unite all policies, inspire a new na- 
tional life, compact our strength, purify our principles, enno- 
ble our national ambitions, and make this people great and 
strong, not for aggression and quarrelsomeness, but for the 
peace of the world, giving to us the glorious prerogative of 
leading all nations to juster laws, to more humane policies, 
to sincerer friendship, to national instituted liberty, and to 
universal Christian brotherhood. 

Reverently, piously, in hopeful patriotism, we spread this 
banner to the sky, as of old the bow was planted on the 
cloud, and, with solemn fervor, beseech God to look upon it 
and make it the memorial of an everlasting covenant and de- 
cree, that never again on this fair land shall a deluge of blood 
prevail. 

From this pulpit of broken stone we speak forth our earn- 
est greeting to all our land. 

We offer to the President of these United States our sol- 
emn congratulations that God has sustained his life and 
health under the unparalleled burdens and sufferings of four 
bloody years, and permitted him to behold this auspicious 
consummation of that national unity for which he has wait- 



308 PATEIOTIC ELOQUENCE. 

ed with so mucli patience and fortitude, and for which he 
has labored with so much disinterested wisdom. 

To the members of the Government associated with 
him in the administration of perilous affairs in critical times; 
to the Senators and Representatives of the United States, 
who have eagerly fashioned the instruments by which the 
popular will might express and enforce itself, we tender our 
grateful thanks. 

To the officers and men of the army and navy, who have 
so faithfully, skilfully and gloriously upheld their country's 
authority, by suffering, labor, and sublime courage, we offer 
a heart-tribute beyond the compass of words. 

Upon those true and faithful citizens, men and women, 
who have borne up with unflinching hope in the darkest hour, 
and covered the land with their labors of love and charity, 
we invoke the divinest blessing of Him whom they have so 
truly imitated. 

But chiefly to Thee, God of our fathers, we render thanks- 
giving and praise for that wondrous providence that has 
brought forth from such a harvest of war the seed of so 
much liberty and peace. 

We invoke peace upon the North. Peace be to the West. 
Peace be upon the South. In the name of God we lift up 
our banner, and dedicate it to peace, union and liberty, now 
and forevermore. Amen. 



Ex. QQY.— ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

April 15, 1865. 

^* 

KEV. J, P. THOMPSON. 

It is said of the late President by one who was near him 
steadily and with him often for more than four years, that 
" his abiding confidence in God and in the final triumph of 
truth and righteousness through Him and for His sake, was 
His noblest virtue, his grandest principle, the secret alike of 
his strength, his patience and his success." 

Thus trained of God for his great work, and called of 
God in the fulness of time, how grandly did Abraham Lincoln 
meet his responsibilities and round up his life. How he grew 
under pressure. How often did his patient heroism in the 



ABEAHAM LINCOLK. 309 

earlier years of the war serve us in the stead of victories- 
He carried our mighty sorrows, while he never knew rest, 
nor the enjoyments of office. How wisely did his cautious, 
sagacious, comprehensive judgment deliver us from the perils 
of haste. How clearly did he discern the guiding hand and 
the unfolding will of God. How did he tower above the 
storm in his unselfish patriotism, resolved to 'save the unity 
of the nation. And when the day of duty and of oppor- 
tunity came, how firmly did he deal the last great blow for 
liberty, striking the shackles from three million slaves ; while 
" upon this, sincerely believed to be an act of justice, war- 
ranted by the Constitution, (upon military necessity,) he in- 
voked the considerate judgment of mankind, and the gracious 
favor of Almighty God." 

Kightly did he regard this Proclamation as the central 
act of his administration, and the central fact of the nine- 
teenth century. Let it be engraved upon our walls, upon 
our hearts ; let the scene adorn the Rotunda of the Capitol 
— henceforth a sacred shrine of Liberty. It needed only 
that the seal of martyrdom upon such a life should cause 
his virtues to be transfigured before us in imperishable gran- 
deur, and his name to be emblazoned with Heaven's own 
light upon that topmost arch of fame which shall stand- when 
governments and nations fall. 

The historian of France has written that when Louis XIV. 
died, "it was not a man, it was a world that ended^" But with 
Abraham Lincoln a new era was born that is glorified and 
made perpetual through his death. He has told how once 
he was startled and terrified at being awakened at midnight 
to see the stars falling and to hear that the end of the world 
had come. But he looked up at the Great Bear and the 
Pointers, and seeing them unshaken he returned to his rest. 
And now that he has gone so calmly to his last rest, we look 
up through the cloud and see the steady pointers of the sky. 
A star of the first magnitude has fallen from the meridian ; 
but the pole is unchanged, and the world holds on its course. 
Angel hands are only shifting the curtains of the sky for 
the dawn. The day is brightening; let us turn from this 
night of sorrow and blood to welcome it with our morning 
hymn of hope and praise. 



310 iPATKIOTIC ELOQUENCE. 



Ex. CGY1.—ABEAIIAM LINCOLN. 

WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT. 

Oh, slow to smite and swift to spare, 

Gentle and merciful and just ! 
Who, in the fear of God, didst bear 

The sword of power, a nation's trust ! 

In sorrow by thy bier we stand, 

Amid the awe that hushes all, 
And speak the anguish of a land 

That shook with horror at thy fall. 

Thy task is done ; the bond are free ; 

We bear thee to an honored grave, 
Whose proudest monument shall be 

The broken fetters of the slave. 

Pure was thy life ; its bloody close 

Hath placed thee with the sons of light. 

Among the noble host of those 
Who perished in the cause of Right, 



Ex. COYll.— COMMEMORATIVE ADDRESS ON THE DEATH 
OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 

Delivered before the Atlienseum Club, New York, April 18th, 1865. 

PARKE GODWIN. 

Me. Peesident : — How grand and how glorious, yet how 
terrible, are the times in which we are permitted to live ! 
How profound and various the emotions that alternately de- 
press and thrill our hearts, like these April skies — now all 
smiles, and now all tears. Within a week — the Holy Week, 
as it is called in the rubrics of our churches — we have had 
our triumphal entrieS, amid the waving of the palms of Peace ; 
we have had our dread Friday of Crucifixion; we have had, 
too, in the recently renewed patriotism of the nation, a resur- 
rection of a new and better life ! 



311 

It seems but a day or two since we listened to the music 
of the glad and festive parade ; we saw the banners of our 
pride waving with beauty in every air, their stars bright 
as the stars of the morning, and their rays of white and red, 
like the beams of the rainbow, telling that the tempest was 
past. We pressed hands and hurrahed, and grew almost de- 
lirious with the joy that Peace had come, that Unity was 
secured, that Liberty and Justice, like the cherubim of the 
Ark, would stretch their wings over the altars of our country, 
and stand forever as the guardian angels of her sanctity and 
glory. 

But now these exultant strains are changed into the dullj 
and heavy toll of bells ; those flags are folded and draped in 
the emblems of mourning ; and our hearts, giving forth no 
more the cheering shouts of Victory, are despondent and full 
of sadness. 

The great Captain of our cause — the Commander-in-chief 
of our armies and navies — the President of our civic councils 
— the centre and director of movements — this true son of the 
People — once the poor flat-boatman — the village-lawyer that 
was — the raw, uncouth, yet unsophisticated child of our 
American society and institutions, whom that society and 
those institutions had lifted out of his low estate to the fore- 
most dignity of the world — Abeaham Lincoln — smitten by 
the basest hand ever upraised against human innocence, is 
gone, gone, gone ! He who had borne the heaviest of the 
brunt in our four long years of war — whose pulse beat live- 
lier, whose eyes danced brighter than any other's, when 

*' The storm drew off 

In scattered thunders groamng round the hills," — 

in the supreme hour of his joy and glory was struck down. 
That genial, kindly heart has ceased to beat ; that noble brain 
has oozed from its mysterious beds ; that manly form lies 
stiff in Death's icy fetters, and all of him that 'was mortal 
has sunk " to the portion of weeds and outworn faces." 

Yet we sorrow not as those who are without hope. Our 
Chief has gone, but our cause remains.; dearer to our hearts 
because he has now become its martyr ; consecrated by his 
sacrifice ; more widely accepted by all parties ; and fragrant 
and lovely forevermore in the memories of all the great and 
the good of all lands and for all time. The frenzied hand which 
slew the head of the government, in the mad hope of paralyz- 
ing its functions, only drew the hearts of the people together 



312 , PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE. 

more closely to strengthen and sustain its power. Oh, foolish 
and wicked dream, oh, insanity of fanaticism, oh, blindness of 
black hate — to think that this majestic temple of human 
liberty, with its clustered columns of free and prosperous 
states, and whose base is as broad as the continent — could be 
shaken to pieces by striking off the ornaments of its capital ! 
"No ! this Nation lives, not in one man nor in a hundred men, 
however able, however eminent, however endeared to us; 
but in the affections, the virtues, the energies and the will 
of the whole American people. Our good ship of State, 
which the tempests assail with their wild fury, which the 
angry surges lift in their arms, that they may drop her into 
the yawning gulf, while the treacherous hidden rocks below 
grind and torture, yet sails on securely to her destined port; 
and when the very Prince of the power of the air smites her 
captain at the helm, and the first mate in his berth : she still 
sails on securely, for her crew is still there ; they know her 
bearings, and will steer right on by the compass of Eternal 
Justice, and under the celestial light of Liberty. 



Ex. CGYIlL—ABHAffAM LINCOLN. 

With earnest heart, unshrinkingly upholding 
The awful cause God raised him to protect : 

With patient heart, the mighty scheme unfolding, 
Looking to Him to counsel and direct. 

Steadfast and calm, through hopes deferred, defeated ; 

Saddened by many cares, oppressed by none, 
Thank God ! he lived to see that work completed, 

Then j)assed away from earth — ^his work was done. 

Not so it seemeth to our darkened vision — 
^till do the shadows veil the dawning light ; 

But hope like his failed never of fruition. 

Since God is on the throne and judgeth right. 

Pure, humble heart, unstained by selfish quarrel, 

Amid the strife of party ever calm, 
He gladly twined our heroes' brows with laurel, 

Then bowed his own to wear the martyr's palm. 



FUTUEE OF THE FKEEDMEN-. 313 

Kind, tender heart, through all its pulses thrilling 

With pity for a captive brother's woe ! 
No rest for him, while steadfastly fulfilling 

God's solemn mandate, " Let my people go." 

"No rest for him, who felt each slave's oppression, 
Who knew their blood for blood must loudly call ; 

"No rest till he effaced the foul transgression ; 
Then gave his own, the dearest blood of all. 

And now, around his bier a weeping nation 
Their ardent love and gratitude express ; 

ISTot with a mournful dirge of lamentation, 
But with a solemn, thrilling tenderness. 

His was the courage and the strength that bore them 
Through the lone wilderness and sea of blood ; 

Who, when the promised land stretched fair before them, 
Upon the towering summit meekly stood ; 

Saw them, ere long, that peaceful land possessing. 
Above all nations prosperous and blest, — 

Then, lifting up his voice in solemn blessing. 
He passed unto his everlasting rest. 

And on each heart his words of benediction. 
With sad, prophetic meaning, now must fall ; 
" Patience and faith in every dark affliction — 
Malice to none, but charity for all." 

Mourn then, but not for him ; he died victorious ; 

A memory more cherished none could crave ; 
God took his spirit to a rest most glorious ; 

We lay his body in aji honored grave. 



Ex. CC1X.—FUTUEJE OF THE FBJEEBMEN* 

ANDREW JOHNSON. 

While I have no doubt that now, after the close of the 
war, it is not competent for the General Government to 

* From the first annual message from President Johnson to Congress, 
Dec. 4, 1865. 

14 . 



314 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE. 

extend tlie elective franchise in the several States, it is 
equally clear that good faith requires the security of the 
freedmen in their liberty and their property, their right to 
labor, and their right to claim the just return of their labor. 
I can not too strongly urge a dispassionate treatment of this 
subject which should be carefully kept aloof from all party 
strife. We must equally avoid hasty assumptions of any nat- 
ural impossibility for the two races to live side by side in a 
state of mutual benefit and good will. The experiment in- 
volves us in no inconsistency ; let us, then, go on and make 
that experiment in good faith, and not be too easily dis- 
heartened. The country is in need of labor, and the freed- 
men are in need of employment, culture, and protection. 
While their right of voluntary migration and expatriation is 
not to be questioned, I would not advise their forced removal 
and colonization. Let us rather encourage them to honorable 
and useful industry, where it may be beneficial to themselves 
and to the country ; and, instead of hasty anticipations of the 
certainty of failure, let there be nothing wanting to the fair 
trial of the experiment. The change in their condition is the 
substitution of labor by contract for the status of slavery. 
The freedman can not fairly be accused of unwillingness to 
work, so long as a doubt remains about his freedom of choice 
in his pursuits, and the certainty of his recovering his stip- 
ulated wages. In this the interest of the employer and the 
employed coincide. The employer desires in his workmen 
spirit and alacrity, and these can be permanently secured in 
no other way. And if the one ought to be able to enforce 
the contract, so ought the other. The public interest will be 
best promoted, if the several States will provide adequate 
protection and remedies for the freedmen. Until this is in 
some way accomplished, there is no chance for the advanta- 
geous use of their labor; and-the blame of ill-success will not 
rest on them. 

I know that sincere philanthropy is earnest for the im- 
mediate realization of its remotest aims ; but time is always 
an element in reform. It is one of the greatest acts on record 
to have brought four millions of people into freedom. The 
career of free industry must be fairly opened to them ; and 
then their future prosperity and condition must, after all, 
rest mainly on themselves. If they fail, and so perish away^ 
let us be careful that the failure shall not be attributable to 
any denial of justice. In all that relates to the destiny of 
the freedmen, we need not be too anxious to read the future ; 



FUTURE OF THE FREEDMEN. 315 

many incidents which, from a speculative point of view, might 
raise alarm will quietly settle themselves. 

Now that slavery is at an end, or near its end, the great- 
ness of its evil, in tha point of view of public economy, be- 
' comes more and more apparent. Slavery was essentially a 
monopoly of labor, and as such locked the States where it 
prevailed against the incoming of free industry. Where 
labor was the property of the capitalist, the white man was 
excluded from employment, or had but the second best chance 
of finding it; and the foreign emigrant turned away from 
the region where his condition would be so precarious. With 
the destruction of the monopoly, free labor will hasten from 
all parts of the civilized world to assist in developing various 
and immeasurable resources which have hitherto lain dor- 
mant. The eight or nine States nearest the Gulf of Mexico 
have a soil of exuberant fertility, a climate friendly to long 
life, and can sustain a denser population than is found as yet 
in any part of our country. And the future influx of popu- 
lation to them will be mainly from the North, or from the 
most cultivated nations in Europe. From the sufferings that 
have attended them during our late struggle, let us look 
away to the future which is sure to be laden for them with 
greater prosperity than has ever before been known. The 
removal of the monopoly of slave labor is a pledge that those 
regions will be peopled by a numerous and enterprising pop- 
ulation, which will vie with any in the Union in compactness, 
inventive genius, wealth and industry. 

Our government springs from and was made for the 
people — not the people for the government. To them it 
owes allegiance; from them it must derive its courage, 
strength and wisdom. But while the government is thus 
bound to defer to the people, from whom it derives its exist- 
ence, it should, from the very consideration of its origin, be 
strong in its power of resistance to the establishment of in- 
equalities. Monopolies, perpetuities and class legislation are 
contrary to the genius of free government, and ought not to 
be allowed. Here, there is no room for favored classes or 
monopolies ; the principle of our government is that of equal 
laws and freedom of industry. Wherever monopoly attains 
a foothold, it is sure to be a source of danger, discord and 
trouble. We shall but fulfil our duties as legislators by ac- 
cording " equal and exact justice to all men," special j)rivi- 
leges to none. The government is subordinate to the people; 
but, as the agent and the representative of the people, it 



316 PATBIOTIC ELOQUENCE. 

must be held superior to monopolies, which, in themselves, 
ought never to be granted, and which, where they exist, must 
be subordinate and yield to the government. 



Ex. CQX.— NATURE AND DESTINY OF OUR GOVERNMENTS 



ANDREW JOHNSON. 



When, on the organization of our government, under the 
Constitution, the President of the United States delivered his 
inaugural address to the two Houses of Congress, he said to 
them, and through them to the country and to mankind, that 
"the preservation of the sacred fire of liberty and the destiny 
of the republican form of government are justly considered 
as deeply, perhaps as finally, staked on the experiment in- 
trusted to the American people." And the House of Rep- 
resentatives answered Washington, by the voice of Madi- 
son : " We adore the invisible hand which has led the Ameri- 
can people, through so many difficulties, to cherish a conscious 
responsibility for the destiny of republican liberty." More 
than seventy-six years have glided away since these words 
were spoken ; the United States have passed through severer 
trials than were foreseen ; and now, at this new epoch in our 
existence as one nation, with our Union purified by sorrows, 
and strengthened by conflict, and established by the virtue 
of the people, the greatness of the occasion invites us once 
more to repeat, with solemnity, the pledges of our fathers to 
hold ourselves answerable before our fellow men for the suc- 
cess of the republican form of government. Experience has 
proved its sufficiency in peace and in war ; it has vindicated 
its authority through dangers, and afflictions, and sudden and 
terrible emergencies, which would have crushed any system 
that had been less firmly fixed in the hearts of the people. 
At the inauguration of Washington the foreign relations of 
the country were few, and its trade was repressed by hostile 
! regulations ; now all the civilized nations of the globe wel- 
! come our commerce, and their governments profess toward 
us amity. Then our country felt its way hesitatingly along 
an untried path, with States so little bound together by rapid 
means of communication as to be hardly known to one an- 

* Conclusion of the Inaugural Address 



NATUEE. AND DESTINY OF OUR GOYEENMENT. 317 

other, and with historic traditions extending over very few 
years ; now intercourse between the States is swift and in- 
timate ; the experience of centuries has been crowded into 
a few generations, and has created an intense, indestructible 
nationality. Then our jurisdiction did not reach beyond the 
inconvenient boundaries of the territory which had achieved 
independence; now, through cessions of lands, first colonized 
by Spain and France, the country has acquired a more com- 
plex character, and has for its natural limits the chain of 
Lakes, the Gulf of Mexico, and on the east and the west the 
two great oceans. Other nations were wasted by civil wars for 
ages before they could establish for themselves the necessary 
degree of unity ; the latent conviction, that our form of govern- 
ment is the best ever known to the world, has enabled us to 
emerge from ciVil war within four years, with a complete 
vindication of the constitutional authority of the General 
Government, and with our local liberties and State institu- 
tions unimpaired. The throngs of emigrants that crowd to 
our shores are witnesses of the confidence of all peoples in 
our permanence. Here is the great land of free labor, where 
industry is blessed with unexampled rewards, and the bread 
of the workingman is SAveetened by the consciousness that 
the cause of the country " is his own cause, his own safety, 
his.own dignity." Here every one enjoys the free use of his 
faculties and the choice of activity as a natural right. Here, 
under the combined influence of a fruitful soil, genial climes 
and happy institutions, population has increased fifteen-fold 
within a century. Here, through the easy development 
of boundless resources, wealth has increased with twofold 
greater rapidity than numbers, so that we have become secure 
against the financial vicissitudes of other countries, and, alike 
in business and opinion, are self-centred and truly indepen- 
dent. Here more and more care is given to provide educa- 
tion for every one born on our soil. Here religion, released 
from political connection with the civil government, refuses 
to subserve the craft of statesmen, and becomes, in its inde- 
pendence, the spiritual life of the people. Here toleration is 
extended to every opinion, in the quiet certainty that truth 
needs only a fair field to secure the victory. Here the human 
mind goes forth unshackled in the pursuit of science, to col- 
lect stores of knowledge and acquire an ever-increasing mas- 
tery over the forces of nature. Here the national domain is 
offered and held in millions of separate freeholds, so th^t our 
fellow-citizens, beyond the occupants of any other parts- of 



318 PATRIOTIC ELOQITENCE. 

the earth, constitute in reality a people. Here exists the 
democratic form of government ; and that form of govern- 
ment, by the confession of European statesmen, "gives a 
power of which no other form is capable, because it incor- 
porates every man with the State, and arouses everything 
that belongs to the soul." 

Where, in past history, does a parallel exist to the pub- 
lic happiness which is within the reach of the people of 
the United States ? Where, in any part of the globe, can 
institutions be found so suited to their habits or so entitled 
to their love as their own free constitution ? Every one of 
them, then, in whatever part of the land he has his home, 
must wish its perpetuity. Who of them will not now 
acknowledge, in the words of Washington, that " every step 
by which the people of the United States hTive advanced to 
the character of an independent nation, seems to have been 
distinguished by some token of Providential agency ? " Who 
will not join with me in the prayer, that the invisible hand 
which has led us through the clouds that gloomed around 
our path, will so guide us onward to a perfect restoration of 
fraternal affection, that we of this day may be able to trans- 
mit our great inheritance, of State Governments in all their 
rights, of the General Government in its whole constitutional 
vigor, to our posterity, and they to theirs through countless 
generations ? 



Ex. GQiXl.—I)IALOGUM—THE OLD CONTINENTAL. 

Characters — Captain, a veteran soldier of the Revolution. Nathan, a 
school-boy. 

Nathan. Good morning. Captain. How do you stand 
the hot weather ? 

Captain. Lord bless you, boy, it's a cold bath to what 
we had at Monmouth. Did I ever tell you about that 'ere 
battle ? 

N. I have always understood that it was dreadful hot 
that day ! 

Gapt. Lord bless you, boy, it makes my crutch sweat to 
thinl* on't — and if 'I didn't hate long stories, I'd tell you 
things about that 'ere battle sich as you would'nt believe, 



DIALOGUE — THE OLD CONTINENTAL. 319 

you rogue, if I did'nt tell you. It beats all natur how hot 
it was. 

iV^ I wonder you didn't all die ol" heat and fatigue. 

Gapt. Why, so we should, if the reg'lars had all died 
first ; but you see they never liked the Jarseys, and wouldn't 
lay their bones there. Now, if I didn't hate long stories, I'd 
tell you all about that 'ere business, for you see they don't 
do things so nowadays. 

JSC, How so ? Do not people die as they used to ? 

Capt, Lord bless you, no. It beat all natur to see how 
long the reg'lars would kick after we killed them. 

iVT What ! Kick after they were killed ! That does beat 
all natur, as you say. 

Gapt. Come, boy, no splitting hairs with an old continental, 
for you see, if I didn't hate long stories, I'd tell you things 
about that 'ere battle that you'd never believe. Why, Lord 
bless you, when Gin'ral Washington telled us we might give 
it to'em, we gin it to'em, I tell you. 

IfT. You gave what to them? 

Gapt, Cold lead, you rogue. Why, bless you, we fired 
twice to their once, you see ; and if I did'nt hate long stories, 
I'd tell you how we did it. You must know, the reg'lars 
wore their close-bodied red coats, because they thought we 
were afeard on'em, but we didn't wear any coats, because, 
you see, we hadn't any. 

JSf, How happened you to be without coats ? 

Gapt. Why, Lord bless you, they would wear out, and 
the States couldn't buy us any more, you see, and so we 
marched the lighter, and worked the freer for it. Now, if I 
didn't hate long stories, I'd tell you what the gin'ral said to 
me next day when I had a touch of the rheumatiz from lying 
on the field without a blanket all night. You must know, it 
was raining hard just then, and we were pushing on like all 
natur arter the reg'lars. 

JSF. What did the general say to you ? 

Gapt. Not a syllable says he, but off comes his coat and 
he throws it over my shoulders: "There, captain," says he, 
"wear that, for we can't spare you yet." Now, don't that 
beat all natur, hey ? 

N. So you wore the general's coat, did you ? 

Gapt. Lord bless your simple heart, no. I didn't feel 
sick arter that, I tell you. " No, gin'ral," says I, " they can 
spare me better than they can you, just now, and so I'll take 
the will for the deed," says I. 



320 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE. 

JSr. You will never forget his kindness, captain. 

Capt, Not I, boy ! I never feel a twinge of the rheu- 
matiz but what I say, God bless the gin'ral. Now, you see, 
I hate long stories, or I'd tell you how I gin it to a reg'lar 
that tried to shoot the gin'ral at Monmouth. You know we 
were at close quarters, and the gin'ral was right between the 
two fires. 

iV^ I wonder he was not shot. 

Capt. Lord bless your ignorant soul, nobody could kill 
the gin'ral ; but, you see, a sneaking reg'lar didn't know 
this, and so he levelled his musket at him, and, you see, I 
seed what he was arter, and I gin the gin'ral's horse a slap 
on the haunches, and it beats all natur how he sprung, and 
the gin'ral all the while as straight as a gun-barrel. 

N". And you saved the general's life. 

Capt. Didn't I tell you nobody could kill the gin'ral I 
but you see, his horse was in the wake of my gun, and I 
wanted to get the start of that cowardly reg'lar. 

iV: Did you hit him? 

Capt. Lord bless your simple soul, does the thunder hit 
where it strikes ! though the fellow made me blink a little, 
for he carried away part of this ear. See there ? [Showing 
his ear."] Now don't that beat all natur ? 

N'. I think it does. But tell me how it is that you took 
all these things so calmly ? What made you so contented 
under your privations and hardships ? 

Capt, Oh, bless your young soul, we got used to it. 
Besides, you see, the gin'ral never flinched nor grumbled. 

JSr. Yes, but you served without being paid. 
Capt. So did the gin'ral, and the States, you know, were 
poor as all natur. 

iVI But you had families to support. 

Capt. Ay, ay, but the gin'ral he always told us that God 
and our country would take care of them, you see. Now, if 
I didn't hate long stories, I'd tell you how it turned out just 
as he said, for he beat all natur for guessing right. 

JSr. Then you feel happy, and satisfied with what you 
have done for your country, and what she has done for you ? 

Capt. Why, Lord bless you, if I hadn't left one of my 
legs at Monmouth, I wouldn't have touched a stiver of the 
States' money, and as it is, I am so old that I shall not need 
it long. You must know, I long to see the gin'ral agin, for 
if he don't hate long stories as bad as I do, I shall tell him 
all about America, you see, for it beats all natur how things 
have changed since he left us. 



DIALOGUE — THE YANKEE MAEKSMAN. 321 



Ex. GQUJH,— DIALOGUE— THE YANKEE MARKSMAN. 

WILLIAM BENTLET FOWLE. 

Characters — Lobd Percy, with his regiment, firing at a target on Boston 
Common. Jonathan, an awkward-looking comitry boy, who has outgrown 
his jacket and trowsers. Time lYY-. 

Percy, ^ow, my boys, for a trial of your skill ! Imagine 
ilie mark to be a Yankee ; and here is a guinea for whoever 
hits his heart, 

[Jonathan draws near to see the trial: and ichen the first 
soldier fires^ and misses^ he slaps his hand on his thigh^ and 
laughs immoderately. Lord Percy notices him. When the 
second soldier fires^ and misses^ Jonathan throws up his old 
hat, and laughs again^. 

Percy [savagely]. Why do you laugh, fellow ? 

Jon. To think how safe the Yankees are, if you must 
know. 

Percy. Why, do you think you could shoot better ? 

Jon. I don't know ; I could try. 

Percy. Give him a gun, soldier, and you may return the 
fellow's laugh. 

Jon. [Takes the gun and looks at every part of if care- 
fully.] It won't bust, will it ? Father's don't shine like this, 
but I guess it's a better gun. 

Percy. Why do you guess so ? 

Jon. 'Cause I know what that'll deu, and I have some 
doubts about this 'ere. But look a-here ! You called that- 
air mark a Yankee, an I won't fire at a Yankee. 

Percy. Well, call it a British regular if you please ; only 
fire. 

Jon. Well, a reg'lar it is then. Xow for freedom, as 
father says. [JRaises the gun and fires.] There, I guess that- 
air red-coat has got a hole into it ! [Turning to soldiers.] 
Why don't you laugh at me now, as that-air fellow said you 
might ? [pointing to Percy.] 

"Percy. You awkward fellow, that was an accident. Do 
you think you could hit the mark again? 

Jon. He ! I don't know ; I could try. 

Percy. Give him another gun, soldiers ; and take care * 
that the clown does not shoot you. I should not fear to 
stand before the mark mysel£ 
14* 



322 PATEIOTIC ELOQUENCE. 

Jon. I guess you'd better not. 

Percy, Why ! Do you think you could hit me ? 

Jon, I don't know ; I could try. 

Percy. Fire away, then. 

[Jonathan fires again and hits the mark.] 

Jon. Ha, ha, ha ! How father would laugh to see me 
shooting at half-gunshot ! 

Percy. Why, you rascal ! do you think you could hit 
the mark at twice that distance ? 

Jon. He ! I don't know ; I'm not afeard to try. 

Percy. Give him another gun, soldiers, and place the 
mark farther off. 

[Jonathan fires again and hits as before.] 

Jon. There, I guess that-air reg'lar is as dead as the 
pirate that father says the judge hangs till he is dead, dead, 
dead — three times dead, and that is one more death than 
Scripture tells on. 

Percy. There, fellow, is a guinea for you. 

Jon. Is it a good one ? [ringing it.] 

Percy. Good ? Yes. Now begone. 

Jon. I should like to stay and see them fellows kill some 
more Yankees. 

Percy [aside]. The fellow is more rogue than fool. 
[To Jonathan.] Sirrah, what is your name? 

Jon. Jonathan. 

Percy. Jonathan what ? 

Jon. Yes, Jonathan Wot. I was named arter father. 

Percy. Do you think your father can shoot as well as 
you can ? 

Jon. I don't know, but I guess he wouldn't be afeard 
to try. 

Percy. Where did you learn to shoot ? 

Jon. Oh, father larnt me, when I wasn't knee high to a 
woodchuck. 

Percy. Why did he teach you so young ? 

Jon. 'Cause he said I might have to shoot red-coats one 
of these days. 

Percy. Ah ! Pray, my boy, can all the farmers in your 
town shoot as well as you do ? 

Jon. I guess they can, and better teu. 

Percy. Would they like to shoot at red-coats, as you 
call them ? 

Jon, I've heerd them say they'd like to try. 

Perc^, Come, my good fellow, while you are well off, 



DIALOGUE — ^IMPKESSMENT OF AN AMEEICAN SEAIVIAN. 323 

yon had better join us and fight for your king ; for we shall 
hang every Yankee we catch. 

Jon. I guess you won't ketch any. 

Percy. Well, we can try^ as you say, and since we have 
caught you, we will hang you for a traitor. 

Jon. E'o you won't. You paid me yourself for killing 
them three red-coats ; so I guess you won't hang me for 
that. 

Percy. IN'o, my good fellow, I like you too well. I am 
sorry that my duty to my king obliges me to injure men who 
show in every thought and action that they are true Eng- 
lishmen. You may go free ; but the next time you see my 
troops firing at a mark for exercise, you must not be so un- 
civil as to laugh at them if they miss. What say you ? 

Jon. I don't know whether I can help it. 

Percy. Well, you can try^ can't you ? 

Jon. I s'pose I can ; for Deacon Simple tried to milk his 
geese, but his wife didn't make no more butter for his trying, 
I guess. 

Percy. Begone ! or I shall have to put you under guard. 
Officer, give him a pass to Charlestown ; but never let him 
come among our troops again. His example is a bad one. 



Ex. CGXm.—niALOaUE— IMPRESSMENT OF AN AMERICAN 

SEAMAN. 

EPES SARGENT. 

Characters — Capt. Maetii^et, Lieut. Peeley. 

Capt. Martinet. Well, Lieutenant, how does the prisoner 
bear his sentence ? 

Lieut. Perley. Stiffly and stubbornly, sir. He sticks to 
the assertion that he is a Yankee. 

Capt. M. Yankee or Yahoo, he will have to swing at 
the yard-arm for mutiny in striking his commanding officer. 
The rascal hit me full in the face. 

Lieut. P. Will it not be rather awkward, sir, if it should 
turn out that he is an American ? 

Capt. M. Of course, he ife an American ; a regular 
down-easter. You can tell it by his talking through his 
Qose. But what do I care for that ? 



824 PATEIOTIC ELOQUENCE. 

Lieut. P. We are on the verge of a war with the Uni- 
ted States ; this may help it on. 

Gapt. M. Let it come. What are we to do ? We must 
have seamen. The law tells us we may take them by im- 
pressment. The Yankee ships are manned more than half 
by British seamen. We must board the Yankee ships to get 
the men we want. If, now and then, we impress a Yankee 
instead of a British subject, is that any reason why we 
should suffer the Yankee to break the first law of the service 
and strike his commander ? No ! Get ready the yard-arm, 
Lieutenant. The fellow must SAving for it. 

Lieut. P, Ay, ay, sir. I will see that everything is 
ready. 

Gapt. M. Send the prisoner to me. 

Lieut. P. Ay, ay, sir. [Exit.'] 

Gapt. M. British subject or not, he put his dirty fist in 
my face. He has been tried by a court-martial and convict- 
ed, and it shall not be my fault if he is not punished. 
[Enter Hieam, with his arms pinioned.'] 

Hiram. I was told you wished to see me. 

Gapt. M. Well, prisoner, what have you to say for your- 
self? You have had a fair trial, and been convicted of mu- 
tiny. The penalty is death by hanging at the yard-arm. 
The ceremony is fixed for this afternoon. Have you any ob- 
jection to make ? 

Hiram. Objection ? Yes, the objection that the mur- 
derer's victim makes to the murderer's blow. You know in 
your heart it will be murder. 

Gapt. 31. What do you mean ? 

Hiram. I mean that I am not a British subject, and you 
know it. What right had you to take me out of an Ameri- 
can vessel ? 

Gapt. M. The right that British law and British power 
give us to seize and impress a British seaman wherever we 
can find one, on the high seas or elsewhere. 

Hiram. But I am not a British seaman. I am a native- 
born American. Defend your claim to touch me, if you can. 

Gapt. M. We find we can not distinguish between Eng- 
lish and Americans. If we took the word of every sailor 
who claims to be an American, we couldn't get enough for 
our ships. So it is a case of necessity, you see. Your true 
way was to keep quiet, and not turn mutineer. 

Hiram, What if you were seized by an American press- 
gang, and placed on boaxd an American ship ; and what if, 



DIALOGUE — ^IMPEESSMENT OF AiT ASIEEICAN SEAMAN. 325 

in trying to escape, you should strike an officer, and be sen- 
tenced to death — would not those who took your life for the 
act be rightly called murderers ? 

Capt. M. Prisoner, I do not choose to argue with you. 
If you have fallen under our laws 

Hiram. Fallen under your laws ? I was forced^forced 
from my own ship on the high seas. Tour plea is the pirate's 
plea. 

Capt. M. Prisoner, the subordinate who strikes me must 
die, either by my own hand or that of the law. 

Hiram. I understand you now. You are more anxious 
to revenge your personal dignity than to punish a public 
wrong. But do not be too sure. There is many a slip be- 
tween the cup and the lip. The diversion you have promised 
yourself for this afternoon will not come off. 

Capt. M. If I live, you shall be strung up at the yard- 
arm this day ! 

Hiratn. You think so ; but you will be disappointed. 

Capt. M. What is to prevent it, here on my own ship, 
with my own crew ? 

Hiram. As I left the deck just now, I saw a little sail- 
boat coming this way. Jotham was at the helm. 

Capt. M. And who is Jotham ? 

Hiram. You know him ; Captain Jotham Luff, of the 
American brig ISTancy ; my captain, from whom your press- 
gang forced me. 

Capt. M. I told that impudent fellow not to come near 
me again. "What will he do ? 

Hiram. I don't know. I only know he'll do something. 
He would never dare to go back to Marblehead and say that 
he had left me to be strung up at the yard-arm of a British 
frigate. The women would tar and feather him, and drag 
him in a cart, as they did old Floyd Ireson. 

Capt. M. The execution shall take place at once. 

Hiram. You are too late. I hear Captain Jotham's step 
on the deck. Here he comes. 

[Enter Captain Jotham Luff.] 

Jotham. How are you, Captain ? Middling, well, I hope. 
Well, Hiram, my boy, they have trussed you up like a tur- 
key for the spit. [TaJces out jack-Joiife^ cuts cords^ and frees 
HiEAM.] There, Captain, it looked so uncomfortable, I 
couldn't help it. , 

Capt. M, {shaking his fist]. You impudent Yankee ! . 
I'U have you keel-hauled, you 



326 PATEIOTIC ELOQUENCE. 

Jotham. Come, now, don't blaze away in that style I 
Where's the harm ? You aren't afraid, are you, of Hiram 
and me ? 

Capt. M. What's the object of this visit ? 

Jotham, To take Hiram back with me. 

Capt. M. I told you, yesterday, that no power on earth 
could save him from being hung. So leave this ship, or I 
will call those who will put you into your boat by force. 

Jotham. I reckon you'll do no such thing. I reckon 
you'll hear what I have to say, and then do what I tell you 
to. Sit down, and make yourself at home. [>S'^^5.] Sit down, 
Hiram. [Siram sits.'] 

Capt. M. [standing]. Well, there's no impudence like 
that of a Yankee. 

Jotham {whittling the stick that Hiram was pinioned hy]. 
You must know, Captain, that when I left you yesterday, I 
was almost as mad as you are now — pretty badly roiled up. 
When I got on board my brig, whom should I find there but 
two lords — Lord Pembroke and Lord Annesly — who had 
been out in a sail-boat, and had stopped to take a look at 
my vessel ! Perhaps you know them. 

Capt. M. Yes, one of them is my nephew. 

Jotham. Well, it occurred to me at once that two lords 
were about a fair exchange for an American sailor ; so I im- 
pressed them. 

Capt. M. Impressed them ! What do you mean ? 

Jotham \rismg]. Don't you know what impressment 
is ? When you force a man into your service against his 
will, that's impressment. Do you think we Americans are 
going to stand that ? Never ! War, first, to the hilt. We 
are ready for you ; the whole country is eager to wipe out 
the disgrace ; and war will come. Let it come. 

Capt. M. What have you done to their lordships ? 

Jotham. Treated them precisely as you have been treat- 
ing Hiram here. 

Capt. M. Rascal ! Scoundrel ! 

Jotham. Keep cool ! It's a fact. I put a stick through 
their elbows, and trussed them up just as you had Hiram ; 
kept them on bread and water ; and this afternoon, if I don't 
prevent it, they will both be hung at the yard-arm of the 
i^ancy. 

Capt. M. Hung ! Your proof of this ? 

Jotham [producing a letter]. There's the proof, in a let- 
ter from their lordships. Read it. You know the handwriting ? 



DIALOGUE — ^IMPEESSMENT OF AN AMEEICAN SEAMAN. 327 

Capt, M. {reading aloud]. " The Yankee will do what 
he threatens. Be sure of that. His vessel is a fast sailer, 
and can not be overtaken. Grant all he asks, if you would 
save our lives. Yours, Annesley, Pembroke." Villain ! Do 
you mean to say you would hang two noblemen within sight 
of the English coast ? 

Jbtham. I do mean to say just that. Touch a hair of 
that lad's head, and before sundown they shall die like dogs. 

Copt. M. What if I seize your person as a security for 
their lives ? You didn't think of that — eh ? 

Jotham. O ! but I did ! That was my risk. I left their 
lordships in the hands of my mate, Persevere Peabody, who 
has orders to hang them, in case I don't send him a signal 
fi'om your vessel before five o'clock not to do it. \Sihows his 
watch.'] It's after four, already, Captain. 

Capt. M. Your mate will not dare to touch a hair of 
their heads ! 

Jotham. O ! you don't know Persevere Peabody. Says 
he, as I was leaving : " Captain Jotham," says he, " I never 
hung a lord in all my life ; but never fear ; I'll do it in a 
style that shall be an eternal credit to the American eagle." 
And, will you believe it ? — the rogue, when he thought I 
wasn't looking, put the clock half an hour ahead, that he 
might have an excuse for finishing the job the sooner. The 
critter set the steward to work on some old black silk neck- 
kerchiefs. Says I, " What's all this for. Persevere ? " Says 
he, " Their lordships will need black caps to be hung in. I 
mean to do everything regular, Captain." Oh, he is a terri- 
rible fellow, is Persevere Peabody. 

Capt. M. [alarmed]. Did you say he put the clock half 
an hour ahead ? Then he may be about it now. 

Jotham. That's a fact. 

Gapt. M. What's your signal for stopping this barbarity? 

Jotham,. That's my secret. I'm not such a simpleton as 
to tell you that before I have made all right. 

Gapt. M. Name your terms quickly. 

Jotham. First, Hiram's release, and a safe return for him 
and me to our vessel. 

Gapt. M. Never ! I'll never consent. 

Jotham, Yes, you will. .Second, ten guineas to Hiram, 
by way of damages. 

Gapt. M. I'll sink my ship first ! 

Jotham. No, you'll not. Tl\ird, and last, a hundred 



328 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE. 

guineas for me, for losses by detention of my brig in waiting 
for Hiram. 

Capt. M. Do your worst ! I'll never agree to such terms. 

Jotham. Yes, you will. 

Capt. M. I^ot till I am struck idix)tic. 

Jotham. Yes, you will. 

Hiram. Kever mind the ten guineas, Captain Jotham. 

Jotham. Hold your tongue, Hiram ; I'll not bate a far- 
thing. 

\Re-enter Lieut. Perley.] 

Lieut. P. The Yankee ship in the offing, sir, is firing 
minute-guns. 

Jotham,. All right. 

Capt. M. What does it mean ? 

Jotham. It means that Captain Persevere Peabody is 
making all ready to hang the two lords we impressed yes- 
terday. 

Capt. M. Stop him at once, or I'll have you put to the 
torture. 

Jotham. You have my terms, Captain. I can't budge, 
let the British lion roar ever so loud. 

Capt. M. What shall I do, Perley ? 

Lieut. P. The Yankee has proved too clever for us. My 
advice to you is to knock under at once. 

Capt. M. Confound the extortionate, tobacco-chewing, 
psalm-singing trickster ! 

Lieut. P. Should any harm come to their lordships, you 
will be severely censured. 

Capt. M. Too true. [To Jotham.] Look you, sir, 1 
accept your terms. 

Jotham. A safe return for Hiram and me ; ten guineas 
for Hiram ; a hundred guineas for me. 

Capt. M. Yes, yes, yes. 

Jotham. You hear. Lieutenant ? 

Capt. M. The pledge is given. There is no escape :&om 
it. The word of a British officer is as good as his bond. 

Jotham.. Then take the American flag out of my boat 
and run it up to your fore peak. Persevere Peabody will be 
disappointed, but he'll not dare to disobey. 

Lieut. P. I'll have it done. [JEJxit.'] 

Jotham. E'ow, Captain, you'll sleep better, and feel bet- 
ter all the rest of your life, to think you've been saved from 
putting a fellow-creature to death. What would have been 
your reflections^ — — 



DIALOGUE — JOHN BULL AND SON. 329 

Capt. M. Stop your palaver, and come and get your 
money. \Exit.'\ 

Jotham. Well, Hii-am, it will not turn out a bad specu- 
lation, after all. 

Hiram. Better than my last whaling voyage. Captain. 

Jotham. Hurrah for our side ! Hurrah for free trade 
and sailors' rights ! 

Hiram. Just my sentiments. Captain. Hurrah ! 



Ex. GQT£S[.—J)lALOaUE—JOHN BULL AND SOJST. 

WILLIAM BENTLEY FOWLE. 

Characters — John Bull and Jonathan. 

John [seated]. Jonathan ! 

Jonathan. What do you want, sir ? 

John. Come here, sirrah. Is it true, as they tell me, 
that you have set up for yourself over the water ? 

Jona. I'll take my oath on't, father. 

John. What do you mean by doing so, you young- 
rogue ? 

Jona. I mean to be free, sir. 

John. Free, you young rogue, were you not free enough 
before. 

Jona. ^ot quite, sir. I wanted an almighty swing, and 
your lot was too small.- 

John. Too small, you villain ! It commands the world. 

Jona. I could put it into one of my ponds without ob- 
structing navigation. We do things on a large scale there, 
su\ 

John. Was there ever such impudence ? What do you 
do, fellow, that we do not ? 

Jona. We hatch cities, father, as fast as you do broods 
of chickens, and every year we set off two or three king- 
doms, or States, as we call them. 

John. What do you make them of? 

Jona. Out of strips of my garden, sir. 

John. Why, how big is yonr garden ? 

Jona. It reaches from sunrise to sundown one way, and 
from one end to t'other end the other way. 



330 PATKIOTIC ELOQUENCE. 

John. Do you pretend to say your garden is large 
enough to allow of your cutting kingdoms out of it ? 

Jona. To be sure I do. I have set off thirty-odd king- 
doms, some of them ten times as big as your old homestead, 
and have staked out a dozen more ; and, having more land 
still than I know what to do with, I have concluded to invite 
all creation to come over and take a lot " free-gratis-for-noth- 
ing," just to get it off my hands. 

John. The deuce is in you. Why, Jonathan, my folks 
are all running away from me. Three or four millions of 
Irish bog-trotters decamped all at once, and the Lord knows 
where they are gone. 

Jona. So do I, father. They have all squatted on one 
of my potato-patches. 

John. You ungrateful dog, what do you mean by steal- 
ing my hands ? 

Jona. They said you couldn't support them, sir, and I 
thought it my duty to help the old man, as they call you. 

John. Well, Jonathan, what are you going to do with 
yourself when you grow up ? 

Jona. Good gracious, father, what do you mean by 
growing up ? I could yhip two of you, now. 

John. You lie, you rascal ! 

Jona. I never mean to try, father, but in answer to your 
question, what I mean to do, I say, I mean to govern all cre- 
ation, one of these days. 

John. What do you mean ? Do you expect to lord it 
over me ? 

Jona. I guess you'll be glad, one of these days, to have 
me give you a lift. 

John. What language do your boys talk, Jonathan? 

Jona. English, sir, better than you speak it here. One 
of them has just made a dictionary for you, in order to keep 
you right. 

John. The young scape-grace ! Well, Jonty, how do 
your boys, on the whole, feel towards the old homestead ? 

Jona. They are proud of it, sir, and will never see the 
old man want, or the farm pass into the hands of strangers. 

John. Give me your hand, Jonty. They told me you 
were a great lubber that didn't care for me. 

Jona. They lied, father, and if you will tell me who 
said so, I will make him eat his words without picking out 
the bones. 

John. Come, come, you young rogue, you almost beat 



DIALOGUE. 331 

your old father at boasting, but I guess you'll turn out a 
clever boy, after all, and, one of these days, when my gout 
is easy, I may walk over and make you a call. 

Jona. Do, sir. You shall never miss a welcome from 
Jonathan, while there is any roast beef or plum pudding to 
be had this side of t'other end of any distance. {Jonathan 
goes out.] 

John. He's my boy, after all. Old John Bull will never 
die while Jonathan lives. 



Ex. CCXY.— DIALOGUE BETWEEN MR. BOLE, INDIAN COM- 
MISSIONER, AND OPOTHLEYOHOLO AND LAGARASH, 
INDIAN CHIEFS— 1SQ2. 



EEBELLION RECORD. 



Indian Chief, We are glad to see you. We want help. 
Our people have been driven from home, and are suffering. 

Mr. Dole. The Government did not expect the Indians to 
enter this contest at all. IsTow that the rebel portion of them 
have entered the field, the Great Father will march his troops 
into your country. The country appreciates your services. 
We honor you. You are in our hearts. One party tells us 
that John Ross is for the Union, and one that he is not. 

Chief. Both are probably right. Ross made a sham 
treaty with Albert Pike, to save trouble. Ross is like a man 
lying on his face, watching an^ opportunity to turn over. 
When the Northern troops come within the ring, he will 
turn over, 

Mr. Dole. You did not, and our people remember you. 
But we hope you will show no revenge. 

Chief. The rebel Indians are like a cross, bad dog. The 
best way to end the breed is to kill the dog. 

Mr. Dole. Only the leaders and plotters of treason should 
suffer. 

Chief. That's ju&t what I think. Burn over a bad field 
of grass, and it will spring up again. It must be torn up by 
the roots, even if some good blades suffer. I hope the gov- 
ernment money will be paid us. 

Mr. Dole. We can not pay you until we know who among 
you are Union and who are rebel. 



332 PATEIOTIC ELOQUEKCE. 

Chief. Those left back there are not loyal. They turned 
against the Government with their eyes open. If we gain 
our land we should have it and they nothing. We have 
talked it over among ourselves, and concluded not to do any 
thing for them. 

Mr. Dole. We can not pay you until your chiefs are to- 
gether, and a council held. 

Chief. All those left back there are Secesh. 

Mr. Dole. I have not power to use the money except in 
a legal and regular way. We will take care of you, and the 
delay in paying you will be as brief as possible. 

Chief. The Creeks have one thousand five hundred war- 
riors who want to fight for the Union. The Seminoles have 
two hundred and fifty, and they will all fight for the Great 
Father. 

Mr. Dole. The Great Father has decided to accept your 
services to put down this rebellion, in case it is your pleasure 
to give them. You will not be expected to fight white men 
unless they are arrayed against loyal Indians. We 'should 
not have called upon you at all had not your own brothers 
been driven from their homes. You go to their assistance, 
not ours. 

Chief. We came down from, our nation to find out how 
it was, and we want to hear the straight. I depend on my 
nation ; I sit with my ears open to hear what they will 
do. 

Mr. Dole. Unless the chiefs speak out, the warriors will 
refuse to do so. Will you yourselves urge your people to 
act ? 

Chief. We want to know how long the war is to be, and 
in what way we are to fight. 

Mr. Bole, l^oi more than twelve months. As to the 
manner of fighting — you can all draw a bead at two hundred 
yards. Your way of fighting will answer our purpose. 

Chief. We want to go down there on horseback. 

Mr. Dole. We are going to send twenty thousand white 
men, on foot. 

Chief. Yes, that's the way white men fight. Indians 
don't. When we fight, we don't fight all the time. We 
don't want to fight so long. I think we can end the war in 
one battle. 

Mr. Dole. That- will suit us. You are a large, noble and 
brave set of men. * Let me hear you say that you will be 
brave warriors, whether others are or not. 



LNDLAN NAMES. 333 

Chef. I told you that whatever my Father wanted me 
to do, I would do. 

Mr. Dole. When yoa go home, tell your warriors to get 
ready, and prepare to be as brave as in former times. Tell 
them that your brother red men have been driven from their 
homes, and they need your assistance. If only white men 
were at war, we should not call upon you. 



Ex. GGKYl.— INDIAN NAMES. 

LYPIA HUNTLEY SIGOTJBNET. 

Te say they all have passed away, 

That noble race and brave, 
That their light canoes have vanished 

From off the crested wave ; 
That 'mid the forest where they roamed 

There rings no hunter's shout : 
But their name is on your waters — 

Ye may not wash it out. 

'Tis where Ontario's billow 

Like Ocean's surge is curled, 
Where strong Niagara's thunders wake 

The echo of the world, — 
Where red Missom-i bringeth 

Rich tribute from the west, 
And Rappahannock sweetly sleeps 

On green Virginia's breast. ^ 

Ye say their cone-like cabins. 

That clustered o'er the vale, 
Have fled away like withered leaves 

Before the autumn gale ; 
But their memory liveth on your hills, 

Their baptism on your shore ; 
Your everlasting rivers speak 

Then- dialect of yore. 

Old Massachusetts wears it 
Within her lordly crown, 



334 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE. , 

And broad Ohio bears it 
Within her young renown ; 

Connecticut hath wreathed it 
Wher# her quiet foliage waves, 

And old Kentucky breathed it hoarse 
Through all her ancient caves. 

Wachusett hides its lingering voice 

Within his rocky heart, 
And Alleghany graves its tone 

Throughout his lofty chart ; 
Monadnock on his forehead hoar 

Doth seal the sacred trust : 
Your mountains build their monument, 

Though ye destroy their dust. 

Ye call these red-browed brethren 

The insects of an hour, 
Crushed like the noteless worm amid 

The regions of their power : 
Ye drive them from their fathers' lands, 

Ye break of faith the seal : 
But can ye from the court of Heaven 

Exclude their last appeal. 

Ye see their unresisting tribes, 

With toilsome step and slow, 
On through the trackless desert pass, 

A caravan of woe. 
Think ye the Eternal ear is deaf? 

His sleepless vision dim? 
Think ye the souFs blood may not cry 

From that far land to Him ? 



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